Big Bang Theory: The Addams CoOccupancy
by Thor2000
Summary: "Did the Addams Family move into the building?" - No, but a family who resembles both the Addams and the Munsters has taken over the top floor, and Leonard and Sheldon are constantly asking, "What the heck are they doing up there?"
1. Chapter 1

The automobile traffic along North Los Robles Avenue was at its usual congestion around three to four in the late afternoon. There was a certain sort of musical orchestration to the pattern the cars had as they moved in and out of lanes, passed and merged into traffic and communed along to an unseen and unheard mind. It was like watching a masterful overture created by several dozen Pasadena motorists traveling through town amidst three-story businesses and five story dwellings. In this thriving West California town, ever individual had a story; ever location had its legends. Struggling actor Joey Tribbiani talked to his agent over his cell phone as he took the crosswalk near the public relations firm on his way to another audition for a TV show, and at the Greek Restaurant at the corner, Collinsport High School alumni Moses Taylor, Nick Schafer and Steve Barnette cheered and tipped back their glasses of ouzo to the memory of their fallen friend and schoolmate, writer William Collins, now gone these five years. Driving through town in a chugging airport stair car, would-be actor and former psychiatrist Tobias Funke was chugging through traffic in his brother-in-law's vehicle on his way to get his brother at the airport, but the light changed suddenly and he had to stand on the brake to get the huge metal monstrosity to stop in time or else risk plowing through the pedestrians coming up behind Tribbiani. Taylor, Schafer and Barnette turned their heads up to see the spectacle just in time to hear the screeching brakes, smell the scent of brake fluid in the air and catch a look at Cal Tech physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper nearly turned into the very late Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

"Do you realize how close you came to almost killing me?" Sheldon's eyes went wide and his head twitched back and forth between his acquaintances with him in the walkway, and Tobias at the wheel of the Bluth Jet stair-car. "If you had come another one-point-five-six meters, not only would I have been killed, but my friends would have pulled you from your vehicle and pummeled you to death for having taken one of the greatest minds of the Twenty-First Century out of existence!"

"Sorry…" Tobias stuck his bald and mustached head of the vehicle and tried to wave his apology to the nut. He gritted his teeth out of strained relief he had stopped in time and breathed a deep exhale of relief. Under the light blue sky and gentle breeze coming in from the Pacific Ocean, Sheldon swatted at the truck and hastily continued his way to the sidewalk as his colleagues looked annoyingly amongst themselves and just continued on their way.

"Who are these friends you keep talking about?" Dr. Leonard Hofstadter followed Sheldon to the curb just as the lights changed and the cars went on about their way. "We're the only ones here." Sheldon scoffed at that excuse and shot him a look.

"Honestly, Leonard…" Sheldon continued to commiserate. "It's as if anyone can get a driver's license these days. You'd think the Department of Motor Vehicles would screen their applicants a bit more thoroughly."

"Says the man who can't get a driver's license himself." Howard Wolowitz was another part of their retinue along with astrophysicist Dr. Rajesh Koothrapalli who silently giggled under breath at Howard's insult directed at Sheldon. The tall skinny physicist was so easy to mock and insult. There were many eccentricities to the egomaniac from his obsessive compulsions to his haughty better-than-thou attitude to his inability or refusal to understand basic human customs to mock and derive humor. Annoyed by the comment, Sheldon shot another look at Howard.

"I can drive." Sheldon told him. "I just choose not to."

"Whatever floats your boat…" Howard grinned derisively at him. They continued to the apartment that they congregated at the Los Robles Apartment Building. It was a five-story walk-up without a working elevator, and the apartment was on the fourth floor across from that of an attractive struggling actress named Penny Parker with whom Leonard had just ended a brief barely year long relationship. They had remained friends despite the break-up, but Leonard still hoped for a reconciliation between them. Listening against their will to Sheldon's continuing long tirade against driving, motorists, automobiles, highways and basically everything in general, their group mulled on further to the building at the center of the block. Howard and Rajesh just rolled their eyes to tune out his long annoying soliloquy directed to no one at particular, but Leonard had the worse job. He had to share an apartment with this psychopath and all his insane eccentricities. As they neared the building, Leonard started imagining covering Sheldon's head with a plastic bag as he slept at night.

"…And, furthermore…." Sheldon came closer the building behind Leonard. "May I add… Oh-No!" Their was a delivery truck out front labeled Wiltshire Moving and Storage Company, and its back was open with its loading and unloading platform down. It was empty now, the deliverymen now coming out of the lobby of the building. Not fond at all of any new tenants moving into the building, Sheldon and the guys entered the building lobby and noticed it full of boxes.

"No…" Sheldon stood disparately. "How many times have I told the building super to let me screen future potential tenants to the building? This is the worst effrontery since the whole Penny fiasco. This is a direct violation of my authority!"

"You don't have any authority!" Leonard reminded him.

"Hey, this could be fun." Howard peered and poked his gaze in and around the boxes and furniture. "Maybe we can figure out what kind of tenants they are?" He tried peeking in a box marked "Marilyn's Cosmetics."

"Is that an electric chair?" Raj noticed the chair in the corner covered in boxes. The guys all veered around to take a look.

"That is so cool!"

"Where?" Leonard looked over.

"Next to the lamp with the shrunken head hanging from it…" Howard pointed it out.

"A shrunken head?" Sheldon started breathing faster. "A shrunken head? What kind of family of deviants has the super allowed to move in here?" He shook a box that started grumbling from within and made him drop it; the box hit the floor and spilled open to reveal three throw pillows, a headless doll and a book entitled, "You And Your African Strangler Plant."

"Did the Addams Family move to Pasadena?" Howard noticed a coat rack with tiny white skulls painted on the posts.

"So, maybe they're a little eccentric…" Leonard tried to stay impartial.

"A little eccentric?" Sheldon picked up an action figure in an orange convict uniform. Pulling the string on it, the eyes started flashing and the ears started smoking as it started screaming with a recorded voice, "I'm innocent! Innocent! Innocent!" Sheldon did his "I-told-you-so" face.

"Look what I found." Raj placed what looked like a toy spider in his hand and showed it to Howard.

"Big deal…" Howard looked at it. "It probably just crawled into the box." Howard recognized it as a dead dried-up spider, and Raj suddenly freaked out and flung it away.

"Still think these people are normal?" Sheldon found something he really didn't like. "What does that look like?!" He pointed under the three steamer trunks covered with travel stickers. They were marked for destinations like Alcatraz, Amityville, Death Valley, Silent Hill, Devil's Island, Crystal Lake and the Bermuda Triangle. Under them, far to the bottom partially obscured by boxes, crates and cabinets was a long polished crate that looked as if it had gold handles.

"Looks like a coffin…"

"Well?"

"Maybe they're kinky?"

"How about creepy, spooky and altogether ooky?" Raj recalled the characters of a poplar iconic 1960s TV show. He looked up to a tall imposing figure coming up behind Sheldon from beyond the corner.

"Can I help you there, Chucky?" Their new tenant appeared from the building manager's apartment on the first floor. He was a tall robust figure, almost resembled actor Jack Nicholson with the added aspects of both Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp. Much younger than the distinguished character actor, he had the receding hairline on top with long dark hair falling down the sides of his head for a much younger look, maybe late Thirties, early Forties. His curious eyebrows arched upward like Nicholson's, but he had Depp's dark brown eyes behind silver-framed eyeglasses and the mustache and goatee of Downey. Garbed in a long dark gray overcoat, he was dressed in a white dress shirt, unbuttoned at top with no tie and a dark and faded blazer and even darker long trousers bunched up around his thick hiking boots. He looked like he could have been a god of the underworld in one of their "World of Warcraft" adventures.

"Yikes…" Howard casually commented on their new acquaintance.

"Hi…" Leonard tried to be more genial. "I'm Leonard Hofstadter, this is Sheldon Cooper - we're your neighbors…."

"Don't be telling him that!" Sheldon obstinately and rudely swatted at Leonard. "Who knows what sort of warrants and misdemeanors this person has waiting for them back wherever they come from?" Sheldon turned back and looked down his nose to this new tenant. Howard and Raj stood back away from him to try and establish their priorities were not like his.

"I'm Jesse…" Their guest shook Leonard's hand. "Jesse Vannacutt… My wife and I are moving to the top floor." His eyes flared a bit mischievously as he spoke.

"Nice to meet you…" Leonard shook his hand. "I apologize. We were just looking over some of your… stuff."

"Yes…" Jesse took his action figure of serial killer Horace Pinker from the top of a box and placed it with his Madman and Serial Killer Action Figure Collection. "It's quite a collection." He grinned sinisterly with another odd bounce of his eyebrows.

"Howard Wolowitz…" Howard shook Jesse's hand. "My friend, Raj… and that's…" He turned to Sheldon.

"No one you need to know!" Sheldon reacted very standoffish. "So, you're moving to the top floor above us? I see. Well, just to let you know. There is to be no hard shoes, loud music or loud beer or anything liquid beverage-related parties to be allowed. I go to sleep promptly at ten; I do not want to hear any loud music, sounds or percussion-related noises coming from your vicinity, and as we pass in the stairs, do not feel obliged to acknowledge my presence as I will surely not acknowledge yours. Don't take it personally, that's just the rules of the building."

Leonard just put his fingers to his head as if he had a headache. Jesse just briefly searched his pockets and pulled out a cigar which he clipped the end off with a tiny device in his jacket pocket. Placing it to his lips, he scratched a match off the elevator doors, lit his cigar as he drew back his breath through it then blew the smoke into Sheldon's face. Jesse quickly and suddenly extended his left arm suddenly outward from his side, then slowly contracted it to lift his watch up to his face and check the time.

"You know what, Sparky…" Jesse was now characteristically imitating the Jack Nicholson voice and lifting his eyebrows once more. "I've only known you three minutes and can already tell… I'm not going to like you now; am I?" He twitched his head over-dramatically and made a strange face with a matter-of-factly expression with an odd deranged grin on his face.

"Maybe we ought to check the local mental ward." Howard whispered to Raj. "One of their guests seems to have escaped."

Raj had a look of mixed fear, worried surprise and nervous anxiety. Leonard looked back to them, and back to Sheldon who suddenly stepped back from Jesse. Was it him, or was it a bit odd that Jesse had already read their characters? Jesse seemed civil to him, Howard and Raj, but he immediately knew how to treat Sheldon, who now backed up from their new neighbor as far as he could get by stepping on the staircase and standing behind Raj and Howard. Jesse hit the button for the elevator.

"Oh, uh, that doesn't work…" Leonard reached down and put back up the "Out of Order" sign that kept falling off the front of the doors. "See?"

"It doesn't?" Jesse had his voice back.

"Would like some help getting your stuff up the stairs?" Leonard offered. The guys suddenly groaned at the level of labor that would involve. It looked like a hundred boxes altogether with bedposts, headboards, chairs and disassembled furniture.

"Leonard, a word?" Sheldon was hesitant to get involved.

"That's okay…" Posturing with his cigar, Jesse thanked Leonard with a pat to the shoulder. "My relatives will be here in a minute."

"He doesn't need any help." Howard was in a lazy frame of mind as well. "Let's get upstairs!" He and Sheldon were hastening up the stairs, but Raj was leading the way.

"Are you sure?" Leonard was embarrassed the guys weren't as charitable as he was.

"I'm sure…" Jesse grinned happy to have met him. He watched as Leonard started up the stairs. On the middle landing, Leonard looked back to Jesse. That was a lot of stuff to get up five flights of stairs for one person. One last look, Leonard headed onward on his way with Jesse still down in the lobby. Watching from below, the bespectacled former lawyer waved assuredly to Leonard then checked the lobby for anyone else. The entry hall was clear, the back hall was empty and no one seemed to be coming into the building. The movers had even driven away with the truck. His actions and movements were secret, almost covert. He had a secret he wanted no one to know. He wrapped a secret knock at the doors of the busted elevator… and after a brief couple of seconds, it opened to a temporarily working elevator with four grown men standing in it. Tapping a few ashes off his cigar, Jesse watched as his bald older brother in the long robe-like fur-lined frock came out to check the doors to the sidewalk. His silver-haired father-in-law in the tuxedo and cape peered out over him like a caped penguin from out of the underworld as his seven-foot tall brother-in-law with the flat head and his bearded teenaged nephew started piling boxes into the elevator.

"Is the coast clear?" His brother asked in a voice that sounded rather sepulchral.

"Of course it is, Chester…" Jesse gestured with cigar a bit. "We can get these boxes upstairs." He put the cigar to his lips, drew his breath back on it and then started moving things into the elevator. "Grandpa, how long can we hide the elevator working from the tenants?"

"As long as you want…" Grandpa started moving boxes. "As long as Harold doesn't do anything stupid…"

"I do have a brain in my head just so you know…" Harold paused with a box marked "Kitchen." "After all, it was the last thing they put in!" He started chuckling his deep baritone chuckle.


	2. Chapter 2

2

For a while the guys forgot about their new neighbors. Maybe not immediately, Sheldon had to gripe, preach and complain a while before they started their Tuesday night ritual of Klingon Boggle, but around 7:30, they started hearing all sorts of noises from upstairs. It started with the sounds of metal scraping metal and then something very huge and very heavy being lifted into place. Howard thought they were pulling the Titanic in from the beach twenty to twenty-five miles away. There were sounds of electricity crackling and sparking with the sound of an old man laughing his head off, and a woman screaming at her grandfather to turn down the stereo. The noises then abated briefly a few minutes just in time for the sounds of what they hoped were dogs racing through the upstairs, but then things got a bit creepy as Sheldon correctly and accurately identified the wail of the rare Carpathian Gray Timber Wolf howling into the warm night air that was Pasadena. By now, Penny Parker, the attractive struggling actress from across the hall had heard the noises and rushed over to find out what was going on, and from there, it was three people staring up to the ceiling in terror as chains rattled, scratching noises ran across the floors, the air-conditioning ducts rattled and the whole building began breathing. Howard and Raj had left by then for home, and with Penny in her apartment across the way, Leonard and Sheldon endured a night of random noises spinning their harmonies through the night. At Cal Tech the next day, neither Leonard nor Sheldon were very much alive themselves.

"I barely got any sleep last night." Sheldon ate his lunch in the university commissary. "Those weird new tenants kept me up with a lot of noise. Hammering, pounding, scratching, howling, moaning…"

"Moaning?" Howard was intrigued.

"Not that kind of moaning, Howard." Leonard spoke up.

"So, why didn't you just go up there and ask them to hold down the noise?" Raj asked. Leonard and Sheldon looked slowly back at each other briefly.

"We were too scared to…" Leonard answered. "Guys, it sounded like we were living in the local Halloween haunted house!"

"Interestingly enough…" Sheldon foisted his head up. "Halloween used to be a Celtic holiday called…." He paused and zoned out tiredly. "Oh, I'm too freaking tired."

"Oh my god…" Howard and the guys reacted stunned. "We actually found a way to shut Sheldon up!"

Sheldon tried to muster his usual offended upset face at Howard but all he could muster was dead tired.

"Dr. Cooper," President Siebert of the University found Sheldon. "How would you like to go into space?"

"Will I be allowed to come back?"

"For us, unfortunately, yes…" He looked at his team of geniuses with Howard. "Dr. Vargas had to back out of the scheduled meeting with the Russian Mir space station, and you are next on the list to go. Are you interested? Please say yes."

"Well, how could I refuse?!" Sheldon shined and suddenly exuded a new level of pomposity than that he already showed. "When do I go?"

"As soon as your security clearance passes." Siebert turned to Leonard. "Make sure he doesn't fail that." He patted Leonard on the shoulder and turned away to leave the cafeteria. Leonard rolled his eyes and returned to his lunch.

"Are you kidding?" He mumbled. "He fails that just by waking up in the morning and opening his mouth!"

"Me…" Sheldon started grinning without hearing that bit of derision. "I could be an astronaut…"

"You already are one…" Raj commented. "Except without the -TroNaut on the end."

Sheldon gave him a look of annoyance.

"Sheldon…" Howard was in disbelief. "They picked Sheldon. They're really scraping the bottom of the bucket, aren't they?"

"Well, I'd say it's only about time…" Sheldon almost regally postured his big oddly shaped head as he imagined the awards and accolades that would come with it. "Imagine… people will finally start treating me with the respect and reverence I deserve."

"You get sick standing in line for the ride to Space Mountain!" Leonard recalled. "Sheldon, as you're friend, I'm proud of you, however, as someone who knows you and how these security things work, I will bet you anything that the closest thing you will get to space is riding the coin-operated space ship at the corner drugstore!"

"What do you mean by that?" Sheldon scowled confused. "What could possibly keep me from going?"

"You can't shut up." Leonard started.

"You're conceited." Howard added.

"You can't take instructions." Raj continued.

"You're insane."

"You don't get sarcasm."

"You're psychotic."

"You really don't play well with others."

"Your ego…"

"Your dictator-like tendencies."

"You get on everyone's nerves!"

"You can't not insult the people around you."

"You can't take orders."

"You're an ass!" Raj added.

"You're a dumb-ass." Leslie Winkle walked by the table and left. "I love this game." The guys paused from listing Sheldon's faults and looked into the direction Leslie had departed. Turning back around, Sheldon scowled angrily around the table.

"Interesting…" Sheldon turned to the same tactic he used whenever his mother and sister criticized him; it was known as denial. "Well, I'm sure you all have some sort of disillusioned opinion of myself…"

"Disillusioned?!" Leonard looked at him. Howard and Raj looked at each other in shocked disbelief.

"Leonard, Raj, Howard…" Sheldon started the bet. "Would you put up your cherished belongings against me getting into space? Quite namely your autographed William Shatner phaser, Storm-Trooper uniform and autographed Richard Dean Anderson Star-Gate script, respectively?" He looked at them. "And when I get into the astronaut program, which I will…"

"Which you won't…." Leonard interceded.

"You all have to spend a day with me as my servants at Railroad Village." He grinned his conceited little smile.

"And if we win…" Howard added. "You are not allowed to talk for an entire day, no… week."

"Bring it on." They all put their hands in.

"Suckers…." They chortled at each other.


	3. Chapter 3

3

At the comic book store off Ellsworth Avenue, Stuart checked and rechecked his order at the counter. He loved his shop. Even with all the on-line shopping changing the personal shopping experience, he loved being able to meet new fans and share comic book and fantasy ideas. His place was covered in comic books, and memorabilia. While not as large as some of his company-run competitors, he did have his own loyal retinue of customers and comrades.

"Hey, Stuart…" Actor Wil Wheaton was a regular customer. He approached the register with a new batch of science fiction comics. "When's the next Warlords of Ka tournament?"

"I haven't decided yet." Stuart started writing down his purchase.

"Think Sheldon will play me again."

"Not unless you have another not-dead grandmother." The bell on the door rang and a figure in a dark suit entered. Narrow-eyed with a thin close-cut hairstyle, he panned the room once and approached the register. He did not looked like he was here to buy any comics.

"Stuart Weston?"

"Yes…"

"John Doggett, Federal agent…" He flashed his FBI badge. "I'm here to ask you a few questions about Dr. Sheldon Cooper."

Wheaton started chortling under breath to contain his laughter.

"What's this about?" Stuart asked.

"I'm doing a security analysis for NASA on Sheldon Cooper."

"Sheldon Cooper?" Wil asked.

"Yes."

"_Doctor_ Sheldon Cooper?" Wil repeated.

"Yes."

Wheaton started laughing even harder and pounding the counter with his hysterical laughter.

"You want to know about Sheldon?" Stuart asked.

"Yes."

Wheaton had fallen on the floor laughing uncontrollably.

"You got a couple of hours?" Stuart responded.

Over on North Los Robles Avenue from the fifth floor over Leonard and Sheldon, they heard new noises building to a pitch. Raj heard it first and reared his head up to look around. At first, they ignored it, but the second time, they sounded a bit closer. Howard lifted his head a bit confused.

"Was that a train?'" He wondered out loud.

"Sounded like a train…" Raj confirmed it.

They heard it again a bit louder. Leonard scowled and went to look out the window, but Sheldon stood and cocked his head like a parrot to listen for the noise. On the third blast of steam, Howard cocked his head to the ceiling. It wasn't coming from near the building; it was coming from inside it!

"That sounds like a Baldwin 280 steam-driven six-wheel locomotive." Sheldon loved his trains. "It sounds as if it's practically upstairs!" He looked like an excited little boy before Leonard.

"I think that is right up stairs!"

The whistle was blowing. Rails were rattling, and the sound of wind rushing over a huge steel structure sounded as if it was coming closer. They felt the vibration through the floor. Their pots and pans started rattling. It sounded as if it was flying over the building. They heard the engine blowing steam, the bells and the clickety-clack of the rails hiding the wood beams. From just behind that, there were the sounds of yet another coming closer.

"And that sounds like the bell on a Heisenbach 10-80 rear-wheel locomotive!" Sheldon was both overjoyed and overwhelmed. "My father let me climb on one as a boy!" The sounds were getting louder. Things were vibrating off the counter and their shelves. The roar of both engines was rattling the building.

"What are they doing up stairs?!" Howard covered his ears as the noises got worse.

"What?!" Sheldon yelled back over the roar of wind, bells, speeding wheels and chugging engines filled the building. They smelled the oil and felt the vibration of the engines through the apartment. It felt like an earthquake!

"What are they doing up stairs?!" Leonard clung to the counter.

"If I'm not mistaken…." Sheldon screamed for the first time Leonard had known them over the deafening roar of steam engines at full blast turning pistons. "I think they're on the same track! What idiot would…" The noise and roar reached a crescendo as a huge deafening ear-splitting crash of mangled metal, several tons of tumbling box cars and the roar of train tracks being ripped out of the ground by the great upheaval. The explosion of noise knocked Sheldon to his feet and flung Leonard backward into the sink. Raj stumbled backward over Howard. Pots and pans hanging overhead fell to the floor, their laptops slid to the floor, their sofa and chairs moved a foot to a foot and a half and the refrigerator popped open as the milk carton slipped out. Even as things got quiet, the ringing of the huge cacophony of a million sounds echoed just a bit longer. The whole building seemed to lightly tremble. Leonard tried to pop his eardrums back into place. Raj sat on the floor as Howard clung to the entry to the hall. Permanently surprised for the minute, Sheldon crawled around on his feet a few minutes then pulled himself up at his spot on the sofa. He was still shaking as he looked disgustedly up to his ceiling.

"Why?" He asked. "Why?"

"That's it!" Leonard had had enough. Once on his feet, he marched out to confront Jesse upstairs. Raj followed him with Howard behind him. Out on the landing, they nearly collided with Penny coming out of her apartment.

"What the hell was that?" She asked. Her eyes were rounded in shock.

"You heard it too?"

"It knocked me off the couch!" They looked up in unison up to the fifth floor. Whatever it was had created smoke that filled the upstairs, and through those billowing clouds of steam and dust a shadow was coming down toward them. It was a shapely figure coming down toward them through the smoke. She resembled actress Christina Ricci with very light pale skin and long very dark black hair hanging down her back to her waist. She was actually exceedingly attractive in a Gothic and Edgar Allen Poe sort of way. Her left hand to her chest as she coughed, she was dressed in a very form-fitting black sweater framing her busty figure in shadow and a long dark floor-length skirt almost obscuring the slippers on her feet. Bracing on the wall outside Penny's apartment, she coughed and choked lightly on the smoke in her system, her chest rising her bosom up and down as she coughed a few more times.

"What the heck was that?" Leonard asked her.

"What?" Lizzie suddenly noticed Penny and the guys. Graciously and delicately rising her regal hands before herself, she glanced around as if she were listening for something then started adjusting her hair. "I'm sorry; I didn't hear anything."

"It sounded like you had a train up there." Sheldon responded. "A real one…"

"Oh, that…." Their darkly dressed enchantress grinned demurely with a light chuckle. "The girls are playing with their Cousin Freddie before he has to return to school. They sometimes get a little loud. Sorry…"

"A little?" Penny asked.

"Yes, yes…" Elizabeth Bathory-Vannacutt waved the smoke around her away. "Now, if you'll excuse me… I promised I'd make my nephew some Dracula's Pie… it is to die for." She turned back up the stairs. "Nikki! Samantha! Don't make me wake your father from his nap!" She lifted her skirt to keep from stumbling over it up the stairs.

"Dracula's pie?" Howard looked to Leonard. Raj was whispering in his ear. "No, I've never heard of it either!"

"I tell you, Leonard…" Sheldon stood outside the apartment. "I truly think the landlord doesn't even bother to screen these people any more."

Several blocks away in a security controlled apartment building, Federal Agent John Doggett counted the numbers on the apartments, turned the corner of the hall and found the one for which he was looking. His stop at the Comic Book Store had lasted a bit longer than usual. Once people learned he was doing a security check on Sheldon and that he was a Federal agent, it had turned into one long story seminar about the idiosyncrasies and weird observations of the man known as Sheldon Cooper. Adjusting his collar, he started wondering what he had got himself into on the job. He knocked at the door of the apartment. Moments later, a cute attractive brunette with a freckled face and glasses answered the knock.

"Yes?"

"Leslie Winkle?"

"Yes…"

"John Doggett, Federal agent…" He flashed his FBI badge. "I'm here to ask you a few questions about Dr. Sheldon Cooper."

"Sheldon Cooper?" Leslie broke a grin.

"Yes."

"_Doctor_ Sheldon Cooper?" She asked again.

"Yes."

She stifled back an abrupt uncontained spurt of laughter.

"You got a couple of hours?" A large grin came across her face.

Doggett made a confused and perplexed look at her.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Another day, another string of the exact variation of the same events from the day before, and Sheldon rose from bed at his usual time ready to solve the mysteries of the universe through his position at the California Institute of Technology. A moment in the bathroom and he followed his same unerring routine that he performed every morning. As this was Friday, he'd be having cereal. Walking through the apartment in his bathrobe, he tightened it a bit and turned into the kitchen, reaching above the refrigerator for a choice of cereal.

"Hello…" A little girl sitting up there looked back at him from over the boxes.

"Hello…" Sheldon answered back, took a bowl from the cabinet and motioned to the counter to make his cereal. The slight disturbance in his morning routine took a few seconds to register and he turned back around to the refrigerator. He had seen a little girl up there!

"Where did you come from?"

"The stork brought me." The girl announced matter-of-factly.

"Don't give me that." Sheldon confronted her. "I didn't accept that answer when I was five-year-old from my mother, and I'm not going to accept it now. How did you get into this apartment?"

"Oh, there are ways…." The sullen little brunette responded bored and distracted.

"Oh, well…" Sheldon stepped back from her. "We're going to see about that. Leonard!" He turned from her and headed down the hall. Once he was out of eye sight, the pixie with the long brown hair atop the refrigerator slipped down off and on to the counter, dropping from there to the floor, opening the cabinet under the sink, slipping inside and closing the door.

"Leonard!" Sheldon marched into Leonard's room where he was trying to sleep in his bed. "What's that little girl doing in this apartment?"

"What little girl?" Leonard's voice came through his pillow and one blanket.

"The one on the refrigerator."

Groaning tiredly, Leonard slowly reached for his glasses, pulled them on and looked up to Sheldon.

"Sheldon," He spoke still half asleep. "Isn't it early to make me want to kill you?"

"Don't explain it to me, explain it to her." Sheldon stood on his robe over Leonard's bed. "She's about seven-years-old, brown eyes, brown hair, dressed in this short black dress and very disrespectful!"

"Yeah, that sounds a little girl you've run into." Leonard roused slowly and tiredly, and with a big yawn, reached for his robe and pulled it around his body once he was out of bed. With Sheldon prodding him to move faster, he wandered into the apartment and looked around. There was no little girl.

"Where'd she go?" Leonard looked around. "Do you still see her?"

"Well, of course, I can't see her; she's not invisible!" Sheldon looked for her through the kitchen and the living room. "Where are you? Little girl? Olly-olly-oxsen-free…" He even used a forgotten children's rhyme to try and summon her. He gazed around the room then stopped near the sofa. "I think she went back out."

Scowling skeptically and cynically, Leonard moved over to check their door. It was still locked.

"Wow, she even locked the door behind her." He responded sarcastically.

"Did you lend a copy of our key out?" Not understanding the sarcasm, Sheldon asked the obvious, but Leonard just ambled the walk of the rudely awakened down the hall to the bathroom.

"Yeah, this is a guy who should be going into space." He mumbled. Their bathroom had a clouded plate glass door, but he now wished it was not so opaque. Upon opening the door, he looked over to the toilet and saw a brunette pixie of a little girl with a round face, two cherubic brown eyes and waves of long brown locks sitting on it with her panties down around her thin white legs in front of her.

"Just a minute…" She told Leonard, and he closed the door.

What the hell was that?

Where did these kids come from? He tried to rationalize it a bit more. Wondering about it, he wondered if Sheldon had been right all along. Debating if he should look again, he wandered out to the outer apartment again. After looking around the kitchen and the apartment, Sheldon had made his cereal and was getting ready to eat his breakfast. He looked up to Leonard at the end of the hall.

"This little girl…" Leonard scowled confusingly. "Was she about yay-tall with dark hair and a round face?"

"Taller."

"I think she's in the bathroom."

"You gave two of our keys out to little girls?"

"No…" Leonard gestured to him to come see, and Sheldon begrudgingly stopped eating his Rice Chex to come confront this girl. They advanced on the bathroom, opened it and looked inside. It was empty.

"Where is she?" Sheldon asked. Leonard checked the shower. It was also empty. "Leonard, there had better not be a little girl in my room when I go in there to get ready for work." He shook his finger at Leonard.

"Oh, come on!" Leonard took offense. "Sheldon, you don't think this could be connected to those weirdoes on the fifth floor?"

"I wouldn't put it past them." Sheldon hurried to get to his cereal before it got limp and soggy, but as he turned, he heard the sounds of thunder. It didn't come from outside the building. It more or less came from inside the building. It was the sound of the air conditioning vents bending and bouncing back into place as something passed through them.

"Oh my god, they're in the duct work!" Leonard realized how they got in.

"Honestly, Leonard, what the hell is wrong with these people?"

"I don't know… Just go eat your cereal…" Leonard made a look around the bathroom one more time before using the toilet. Mentally planning to talk to Jesse about his daughters getting into their place, he showered and shaved and dressed before getting his breakfast. Hoping that was it on the weird stuff in the building for today, he was eating his own bowl of cereal for breakfast when he heard the sound of rattling out in the hallway landing. It sounded like a large dog was outside his door.

"Spot…Come on, Spottie! Come to din-din…" Lizzie's voice called from upstairs.

Leonard scrambled to keep from spilling his cereal on the floor after the loud roar that had followed. He had never heard anything like that ever before! Lasting several seconds with an ever-lasting echo effect trailing off, it sounded reptilian with the accompanying patter of feet heading up the stairs. The closest thing he could describe it as was the sound of the tyrannosaurus rex from the movie, "Jurassic Park." Adjusting his backpack with his notes, Sheldon just paused annoyingly surprised and exhaled exasperatedly. Leonard quickly put his bowl in the sink and raced to get a look at in the hall, just in time to see around three feet of dark greenish mottled tail heading up the stairs and vanishing up top. Behind him, Penny opened up her door wearing her orange and white waitress uniform for the Cheesecake Factory.

"What the hell was that?" She asked both stunned and scared to death.

"Looked like a cross between a komodo dragon and a stegosaurus…." He answered.

"Leonard," Sheldon came out of the apartment ready to leave for the university. "You have got to go up there and talk to those people. We can't have little girls in the vents, dinosaurs in the stairway and trains crashing overhead."

"Me?" Leonard reacted annoyed. "Why can't you talk to them? You're the one around here who likes complaining."

"I can't…" Sheldon reacted submissive. "They scare me."

"Yeah, Leonard, you have to do this." Penny had retrieved her purse and was getting ready to leave herself. "Last night, I smelled something they were barbecuing on the roof called Ostrich Ka-Bobs, and, what scares me is, they started smelling good!" She looked scared. Leonard had stepped inside to get his coat and lock the apartment behind Sheldon.

"I'll do it…" He gave in.

"Great!" She grinned toward him. "Can you drive me to work?" She asked.

"No." Sheldon answered.

"Sure." Leonard had the final say; it was his car. They started down the steps to the third floor, but it started happening again. They heard a distant voice singing down stairs coming up toward them they had never heard before. Sheldon groaned annoyingly, and Leonard looked to Penny for answers. This person was coming closer. When they reached the third floor, they were right above the voice, and while heading down to the second, they were right on her.

"…_Champagne kisses, living in your lap of luxury_…" Their female vocalist was exceptionally beautiful with jet black hair, fair alabaster skin and big round blue eyes wearing tight blue jeans with alligator-skin boots and a small top that did nothing but focus attention to her proud bosom leading her up the stairs. Dragging a leather jacket behind her, she looked incredibly like singer Katy Perry, and upon seeing her, Penny dropped her jaw in shock believing she was the mega-million dollar entertainer in the building. Leonard immediately started mentally undressing her curves, but Sheldon remained asexual and rolled his eyes upon passing her. Penny dropped her jaw in shock as Katy came close to Leonard.

"Hey there!" She grinned and blew a kiss at Leonard from her ruby red lips. Penny was in awe. Sheldon reacted confused and unsure how to react to an oversexed fair-skinned brunette with jet-black hair and blue eyes coming up their stairs, flirting with Leonard and then heading onward to the upstairs.

"Was that Katy Perry?" Penny looked back.

"Who?" Leonard was not up on anyone who was not part of the comic book, science fiction or fantasy universes.

"Katy Perry?" Penny tried to remind Leonard. He just remained oblivious. "She's like a major pop singer!" Penny wanted to shake him. "Okay, she's like… Wonder Woman in my universe!"

"Oh, Katy Perry!" He had heard her music back when he was dating Penny. "So, her being here… that's unusual, right?"

"Uh…Yeah!"

"What would someone that famous be doing in our building?" Sheldon wondered.

"I've got to get her autograph!" Penny started up after her.

"You'll be late for work." Without Katy every appearing on "Star Trek" or "Stargate," Leonard still did not get how popular the singer was.

"Crap and a half!" Penny came back down to join them for her ride to work. Grabbing the front seat of Leonard's car before Sheldon, she debated with the guys why a major entertainer would be in their building, and gradually began to postulate her being linked to the Vannacutts on the fifth floor. That was another reason for Leonard to talk to Jesse after work about the kids and the noises. He'd be able to ask Jesse about his connection to the singer, but five hours later, all of that was far from his mind in the university physics lab.

"Leonard Hofstadter?" Someone visited him during his research.

"Yes…" Leonard looked up to his guest.

"John Doggett, Federal agent…" He flashed his FBI badge. "I'm here to ask you a few questions about Dr. Sheldon Cooper. You got a couple of hours?"

"Oh, it shouldn't take…" Leonard paused to turn off his argon laser. "Uh, actually it might…."


	5. Chapter 5

5

Over on West Columbia Boulevard, Penny was busy taking orders and waiting on tables in the Cheesecake Factory Restaurant. Bernadette was off today, but Abby and Ashley were on the job today. They were good workers, and their camaraderie made the job easier as they covered for each other. Serving a married couple, she turned to take another order.

"Hello, welcome to the Cheesecake Factory, would you like to hear our specials?"

"What do you have?" Short with dark hair and eyeglasses, William Samms looked up to her.

"We have a nice baked tilapia sandwich with island dressing." Penny announced. "It comes with your choice of fries or onion rings with a fruit cocktail."

"That sounds good." William responded. "Can I have it with fries with a glass of iced tea?"

"Okay…" Penny jotted his order.

"Shrimp Salad for me." Looking over the menu, Ratri was the attractive Hindu beauty with the short dark hair. "Uh, toast instead of crackers and a baked potato, please." She paused. "I'll drink tea as well." She turned to her boyfriend by her side in the booth. "Schoost, what are you having?"

"I can't decide…" The tall skinny guy in the Batman t-shirt spoke with a British Middle-London accent. "Oh, how about the Junior Bacon Sandwich with the onion rings, a side salad and a Coke. " He paused to look up at Penny. "I just love your American cuisine."

"Okay…" Penny had their orders. "I'll get that right up." She turned for the kitchen, paused and looked back. Those three looked so familiar to her. If Howard had been with them, they would have resembled Leonard and Sheldon with a cute female version of Raj. It seemed really odd to her that those three would echo the guys so closely. "Wow…." She gasped softly and turned the order in to the kitchen. Behind her, William was checking her out.

"She is hot." He commented on Penny's looks. "I wonder if she has a boyfriend."

"William, do you really want to go that route again." Ratri looked at him with great love and respect. "You just broke up with Jenny."

"We didn't break up." William was in denial. "We were just in two different places in the relationship." He adjusted his glasses.

"Will…" Schoost leaned over to him. "Ratri knows a really nice girl in India named Priya Koothrapalli; they went to school together. She'll be visiting in a few weeks. Let us fix you up."

"I don't know…"

"Just promise me you'll meet her." Ratri looked up as Penny brought their drinks and salads. Promising to be right back with their orders, she noticed her manager gestured her to another guest. Penny turned to cover for Chloe the hostess.

"Hello." She took a menu and silverware. "Welcome to the Cheesecake Factory; will this be one for lunch?"

"Penelope Parker?"

"Yes…"

"John Doggett, Federal agent…" He flashed his FBI badge. "I'm here to ask you a few questions about Dr. Sheldon Cooper. You got an hour… or two?" He set down a stack of cassette tapes in the empty booth. His right hand was cramping from all the writing. She looked at the stack of tapes.

"That's not going to be enough." She responded.

Across town, Leonard and the guys were returning from their meal at the local Big Boy Restaurant, Sheldon's preferred Thursday destination for dinner. By his schedule, every night was assigned to something else, but the guys just tagged along with it. Monday was reserved for Thai Food, and Tuesdays they went to the Cheesecake Factory, where Penny almost always served them.

Wednesdays were reserved for tacos from the Ha-Ha Hacienda even if Raj suspected their hamburger tasted a bit like horsemeat. Thursdays used to be at the Soup Plantation, but it was dropped to accompany the Cheesecake Factory on Tuesday while Bob's Big Boy with its Sloppy Joe sandwiches took over Thursday, formerly reserved for Giacomo Pizza which was moved to Friday, Saturday was Subway Sandwich Day and Sundays were the day for Captain Ahab's Seafood, replacing Mario's Italian Restaurant, which had moved to a new location. Sheldon also thought it was redundant to have two Italian places in one schedule. It was Sheldon's strict schedule, but the guys sort of followed it. Raj nevertheless liked the spaghetti at Big Boy, and Howard liked the pork chops and dressing. Leonard this time had the quarter pound cheeseburger while Sheldon always had the bacon cheeseburger. Carrying his leftover soda, Raj sipped at it and followed behind as they returned to the building to play Halo.

"Oh, wait… hold up, guys…" Howard entered the lobby of the building and was immediately struck by the beauty in the lobby. Clad in her black sweater and form-fitting dark slacks with her long dark hair hanging down her back, Jesse's wife, Lizzie Vannacutt, was at the mailboxes pulling the mail for her family forwarded from Oregon. Barely getting a glimpse of her the other day, she was a busty, fair-skinned attraction with a tall svelte frame that stimulated his hormones. He had to get closer to her.

"Howard, she's married!" Leonard reminded him.

"Not that, I want to try something." Howard looked at Leonard and turned to look at Lizzie. She was reading a postcard from her brother in Transylvania. Slipping closer to her, Howard paused just behind her.

"Da-da-dum…" He did the Addams Family theme and snapped his fingers twice. Leonard reacted embarrassed as Lizzie turned her head to him, narrowed her eyes confusingly to him and then turned back and continued reading her brother's postcard. She also had a letter from her sister in Munster, Germany. Howard re-joined the guys.

"What did you think was going to happen?" Sheldon asked.

"I wasn't sure. I just wanted to try it." He rejoined them going up the stairs. Down below, Lizzie gasped, collected the family mail and her grandfather's package and checked to see if the guys were gone. Looking around once more, she turned toward the elevator and pushed the button.

"_Otis-Loftus-Bonaduce_!" She enchanted it with a spell and it opened up for just herself alone. Stepping inside, she leaned to the back with a small grin, a slight breath lightly rising her bosom on her chest then raised her hands to snap her fingers twice to finish the TV theme. The elevator closed and started lifting through the building. Nearing the third floor, the guys paused and heard it go pass them.

"Is that the elevator?" Raj heard it.

"It couldn't be! It's been busted for five years!" They paused and listened as it went past them. Howard curiously pressed the button for it, but nothing happened. The humming passed by them and continued on-ward to the fifth floor. It sounded like the gears and lines moving, but there was another sound as well. They heard distant trumpets, some drumming and then some woodwind instruments. It was the sound of an orchestral band from high overhead coming down to meet them. Was there a marching band in the building? The loud symphonic music was getting closer and coming down the stairs. They knew this theme very well. They had heard it several times in a famous trilogy of movies. It was the loud percussive "Advance of Darth Vader" music from all three of the Star Wars movies, and by proof, they watched as two Imperial Storm-troopers in white battle armor and helmets carrying laser rifles hastened down the stairs from the fourth floor overhead and stood guard at the bottom stairs outside Mrs. Fishbein's apartment. Coming down behind them were four more Storm-troopers in full gear carrying laser guns while accompanying Darth Vader himself, the Dark Lord of the Sith himself. The costumes were perfect, their presence was just as intimidating as in the movies. Leonard could hear his loud breath coming through his skull-like helmet. Howard and Raj pressed against the wall as the troopers pushed them out of the way. Sheldon was trapped in the corner as these armored men protected their Imperial Commander. They looked real and they meant business as they marched on, but the whole scene was marred by the seventh Storm trooper carrying the CD player blaring the music and following behind.

"Did we miss Comic-Con or something?" Raj asked out loud. "What the hell was that?"

"It looked like Darth Vader." Leonard replied.

"Maybe I misjudged these Vannacutts…" Sheldon started one of his long-winded analyses. "Anyone who likes "Star Wars" this much to create such accurate costumes just to go out in public can't be all bad. I mean… I really felt worried for a…"

"Hey!" Someone called from upstairs. It was another character from the movie trilogy. Calling annoyingly as he stumbled and gasped coming down the stairs, a hunched over old man with a ruined face wearing a long dark hood and cloak stumbled and hurried past them.

"Why doesn't this accursed building have a working elevator?" Emperor Palpatine paused and wheezed tiredly outside the elevator as he pounded the buttons on each floor. "Wait up you, morons!" He tried fruitlessly to catch up with Vader and the Storm troopers. Leonard watched him wearily start down to the second floor then winced with the guys as the frail old guy tripped and stumbled ass over head down to the lobby and bowled over Vader and the Storm-troopers like bowling pins at the bottom. Leonard, Raj and Howard stood en masse at the top of the stairs listening to the groans and injuries below then slowly one by one turned to look at Sheldon.

"I gotta ask…" Sheldon turned to Leonard. "What the hell is wrong with those people living on the fifth floor?!"


	6. Chapter 6

6

Penny was out of clean sheets for her bed. She wasn't much of a housekeeper, and her cleaning regime wasn't perfect either. She pulled the covers off of her bed, her three other sets piled on the floor under her window and tossed them all into the laundry basket to wash downstairs. Approaching the second floor, she heard an odd hum from the elevator shaft. Was it working? She paused, listened as it went past her and then tried pressing the button. Nothing.

"Great, the building is haunted." She mumbled and went on about her business, down to the lobby, around to the basement steps and then down to the laundry room. When she reached the room, she looked in and saw Lizzie Vannacutt sitting on one of the driers and filing her nails. Dressed completely in black with the old-style button-up boots from the turn of the century, she worked and filed to finely manicure her perfect black fingernails the way her husband liked them. As Penny passed before her, she lifted her brown eyes up to her without lifting her head.

"Hello, Penny…"

"Hi, Lizzie…" Penny tried to be gracious. "How's the family?"

"Oh, they're a dream I never want to wake from…" She leaned backward on the machine with her voluminous figure pushing forward. "I have beautiful daughters, a husband who loves and adores me…" She paused for a deep breath. "I'm going to follow them into the afterlife… and beyond…"

Penny rounded her eyes in fearful nervous surprise and turned to stuff her laundry into the machine, but as she was adding her laundry to start it, Lizzie's machine buzzed and the Gothic housewife jumped off, pulled out her own laundry basket and started taking her clean clothes out of the dryer. Penny watched barely interested, trying not to impose on Lizzie's privacy, as Lizzie pulled out Jesse's white shirts, clean underwear, her own dainty unmentionables, long fishnet stockings and then a heavy jacket with arms fastened in the rear.

"Is that a strait jacket?" Penny asked.

"It belongs to Jesse's brother, Chester. He sometimes stays with us." Lizzie pulled out some of her daughter's clothes and watched the young blonde actress stuffing the washing machine. "Penny, darling, would you like some fabric softener? It'll leave your clothes as fresh as a mausoleum!" He beamed eager to help.

"No, no, no…." Penny gently refused. "I got my own." She showed her own liquid softener and added some. It only made her clothes smell like a spring day, but it was her own. Lizzie lightly grinned to her and continued filled her basket. More shirts, some trousers, her daughters' clothes, a handful of socks… She also heard something rolling around in the dryer, poked her hand in to get it and pulled out a small round dried head.

"Uncle Knick-Knack, how'd you get in there?!"

"Oh-god, oh-God, oh-God, oh-God…" Penny started her washing machine, grabbed her basket and hurried out of the room freaked out. Lizzie watched her walking very quickly out of the room and tilted her head a bit confusingly. She looked down to the remains of her uncle brought back from those headhunters in Papua New Guinea.

"Did you say something to offend her?" Lizzie talked to the head, placed him in the basket and double-checked the drier, pulling out another dried severed head just a bit smaller from the first.

"I didn't know Cousin Horace was visiting!" She recognized him by his eyebrows.

Hastening to the first floor, Penny slowly skidded to a stop on the top landing at the top of the stairs. She had heard of shrunken heads in books and television, she had been around butchered pigs and chicken on her farm in Nebraska and her brothers often tormented her on Halloween with fake body parts. She had also heard of a few locals caught in thrasher accidents, but she had never ever seen a genuine confirmed actual severed body part. Pausing to cringe and try and forget what she had seen, she headed forward to the stairs and met Howard and Raj entering the building.

"I swear!" Howard announced. "It was Jennifer Lopez! I saw her. I talked to her!"

"Dude, Jennifer Lopez?" Raj was cynical of Howard's story. "What would Jennifer Lo- Eep!" He noticed Penny and his mutism shut him down in her presence. No matter what, his anxiety around beautiful women made him stop talking except when he was intoxicated with alcohol or had confidence from believing he was intoxicated. It was a weird little quirk, but it was one Penny fully understood.

"Raj…" Penny came up to him. "Still can't talk in front of me, huh?"

Gifted but insecure, Raj almost gasped but then shook his head at her.

"Sorry, sweetie…"

"Penny, you believe me right?" Howard spoke.

"What?"

"I met Jennifer Lopez last night as I was heading home." They started up the stairs with Raj behind them. "She was in front of the building coming in."

"Jennifer Lopez?" Penny was skeptical. "Jennifer "Jenny-from-the-Block" Lopez?"

"Yes."

"Jennifer Lopez?" They crossed the second floor.

"Yes!"

They paused as they heard the elevator passing them from the basement. It passed them on the second floor and headed up to the fifth floor. Listening to it humming past, they stood letting it pass them.

"What was that?"

"The building is haunted…" Penny continued on. Howard looked at Raj then they turned to keep up with Penny onward to the third floor.

"Anyway…" Howard caught up with her. "You believe me, right?"

"Well, maybe…" Penny was getting her next wind to ascend to the fourth floor. "Do you believe me when I say I met Katy Perry coming down?"

"Katy Perry?" Raj spoke very surprised then covered his mouth with his hands. He had a crush on the busty brunette entertainer.

"Katy Perry?" Howard looked back to Penny.

"Yeah, " Penny finally reached her floor. "Didn't Leonard tell you? He was with me when we crossed her coming up the stairs."

"No, he…" Howard was interrupted by Leonard coming out of the guy's apartment. Clad in his jacket and carrying his car keys, he was on the way out.

"Hey, guys, I'm about to go get the food…"

"Why didn't you tell me you met Katy Perry?" Howard confronted him. "Are you keeping her from me?" Leonard stood looking at him in disbelief.

"Yeah, Howard, I've also got Madonna and Paula Abdul hidden in the apartment, and we're all making mad passionate love to each other." He answered sarcastically as Penny smirked trying not to laugh. "Look, I didn't think it was relevant. She was possibly a look-alike. Jason from upstairs said he saw Gwen Stefani, Mrs. Shapiro in 2B said she met Christina Aguilera in the lobby, and Stuart said someone saw Britney Spears flying over the building in a Supergirl costume… Now, with the obvious exception of the last, they've got to all be look-alikes. I mean, this building is not the center of the Pop Music Diva universe!"

"Don't care!" Howard was obsessed. "Real Katy Perry or Fake Katy Perry, I want a date with her!"

"And I want a date with David Beckham or Hugh Jackman." Penny posed with her laundry basket in the hall. "Look, Howard, if Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera are suddenly all living up stairs with our weird new neighbors…" Penny asked Howard. "You can try asking them out as much as you want; I mean, heck, you might even get a shot with, oh, I don't know… Lady Gaga?"

"_Poker face_…"

They heard someone coming down from over their heads and looked behind themselves curiously to see who it was. Dressed in a long white overcoat with a large-brimmed black hat, silver halter top and fishnet stockings with form-fitting black shorts, Lady Gaga came down to meet them and pass by on her way to the first floor.

"_Can't read my - can't read my Poker Face! Poh-poh-poh-poh-poh-poh-poh... My Poker Face_…" Singing slightly under breath to herself, she stopped, pretended to grind her hips toward Raj against the wall, flirted with him by narrowing her eyes toward him and then blew him a kiss through her ruby red lips. Turning away on her heel, she started down the steps behind Leonard while passing her hand over his chest and down his back.

"_Because I was born this way_…" Changing songs, her voice was descending down through the building. Behind her, Penny and the guys froze out of being awed and intimidated by her presence and not knowing what to do. The guys looked at Penny as if she was a witch.

"How the hell did you do that?" Leonard turned to Penny looking very shocked and alarmed.

"Penny, listen closely…" Howard turned to her. "Wish me, Katee Sackhoff. No, wait, Summer Glau! No, Katee. Summer…. Wait! Angelina Jolie!"

Penny just narrowed her eyes at him, looked back at Leonard briefly and humored him. Setting her laundry basket by her door, she turned for the stairs to the fifth floor, placed her fingers to the sides of her head and started wishing.

"David Beckham, David Beckham, David Beckham, David Beckham, David Beckham, …"


	7. Chapter 7

7

Thursday was Comic Book night, and that meant the guys were off to the Comic Book Store owned and run by their friend, Stuart Weston, to get new comic books, look up new issues and just peruse the new comic book and movie memorabilia. The Vannacutts upstairs had been quiet these few days except for the wolves running on the hardwood floors, the girls giggling and exploring the air conditioning vents, the mad scientist laughter, the moans and groans of apparitions rattling chains and something Sheldon described as the roars of a plesiosaurus cross-bred with a tyrannosaurus rex. Beyond the noises, they could see the girls peeking out from the vents, the bats circling the lampposts at night, shadows of a slinky female redhead in a dark leather costume slipping into the roof and a hearse pulling away and arriving at the front of the building in the morning and evening.

"What do you think they're doing up there?" Raj asked as the guys once again returned to the building to hang out in the apartment and play video games.

"Don't know, don't care." Sheldon responded.

"Aren't you the least bit serious?" Howard was bursting for new stories from the haunted fifth floor. "What about the guy living across from them and above Penny? Jason? Has he seen anything?"

"We haven't seen him in a while." Leonard moved across the empty lobby to get the mail. Unlocking the box and checking it, he tossed it back in to retrieve after they returned from the comic book store.

"Oh my god, they ate him!" Raj reacted scared.

Leonard gave him a look of exasperation. "They didn't eat him!"

"How do you know?"

"Because we would have heard something!"

"Like what?" Howard remained complacent. "A giant burp?"

"That's ridiculous…" Sheldon spoke up. "In African and South Pacific aborigine tribes, the natives kill and boil the bodies of their enemies only during strict famines and rituals in order to gain the strength and power over their enemies. Unfortunately, they did not know that by doing so that they contracted prion disease resulting in a shut down of the brain and nervous system and ending in an extremely violent death symptomized by convulsions, foaming of the mouth and lack of autonomic control."

The guys all looked exasperatedly and disgustedly at Sheldon.

"Well, it's true!"

"Thank you, Dr. Frankenstein!" Leonard commented as they turned toward the front entryway of the building. As they were heading out, a beautiful blonde with the body and figure of the comic book women they obsessed about was entering the building. She was not a true blonde; she had chocolate brown eyes and her hair was a golden blonde rather than the pure blonde hair of Penny. She looked uncannily like pop princess Britney Spears, and Howard and Raj recognized her immediately, followed by Leonard and then Sheldon who just complacently rolled his eyes. He just did not understand how one celebrity goddess could seize and take over the guys' hormone levels just by coming within ten feet of them. Garbed in a form-fitting white t-shirt and blue jeans with leather sandals, the pop princess looked a few years younger than they thought she was, maybe about twenty-five or early twenties. Virtually timeless, she went straight for the box for Apartment 5-A, unlocked it and pulled out the mail for the Vannacutt Family then turned round to her ardent admirer sliding up to ask her out on a date.

"Howard Wolowitz…" The short Jewish structural engineer revealed his worldly side to her. "Allow me to hit that one more time?"

"What?"

"I'm just saying…" Howard mustered his steely grin again. "You drive me crazy, and I was born to make you happy."

"Wanna try again?" She grinned at him.

"I'm a slave for you." Howard bounced his eyebrows at her. He seemed to be getting somewhere with this girl. He didn't know if she was the real thing or a look-alike, but he was sure going to love finding out. Leaning close to him, Britney raised her pink lips up to his ear and placed her hands to his chest.

"I'm just too… Toxic… for you." She whispered decadently. Their eyes met, and Howard felt afraid. He turned away from her to the guys waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs not humiliated but too overwhelmed by her.

"Oops, I did it again." He made the last reference to a Britney Spears song. Leonard looked to him then moved past him to try and ask her out, but he barely got as far as Howard. He walked up to her, removed his glasses and strided up close to smell her perfume. It smelled like roses and lilacs over fields of holly. She looked back at him with those two smoldering brown eyes, an amused grin on her pink-painted lips and a dancing sparkle across her face.

"I got nothing." Restoring his glasses, Leonard spun back around and left with the guys to go to the comic book store. Raj stayed behind in love a few seconds over, made one step toward her and faired less than both Howard and Leonard before turning and leaving himself. Grinning at the attention, the look-alike chuckled a bit to have a look that turned grown men into mere boys.

"That's a shame." She mumbled. "The little Hindu boy looks cute today." She lightly giggled a bit and checked the stairs, the front sidewalk for anyone about to come in then checked the back hallway again. Clutching the mail under her left arm, she paused to remember the right incantation, checked it written on her left hand, pressed the bottom for the elevator and passed her hand over the doors.

"_Otis Loftus Bonaduce_!" She enchanted the broken down conveyance, and it opened up for her to a perfectly restored compartment lift with a red carpet, wood paneled walls and solid gold railings. Stepping into it, she pressed the button for the fifth floor, and it hesitated just a second on her. It was just a second too much. Coming home from work, Penny entered the lobby heading for her apartment, noticed the elevator starting to close and hurried to make it. Britney reacted with shock to see her suddenly jump in to it with her.

"It is working! I knew it!" She was excited. "Why didn't anyone tell me they fixed the elevator?!" She asked before hitting the button for the fourth floor.

"Uh…" Britney reacted scared and unprepared. "Oh, crap…" Busted!

"Thank God!" Penny breathed in a deep breath. "My feet are…" She looked at this girl with her. She looked familiar. "Are you Britney Spears?"

"Do I look like Britney Spears?"

"Yes…"

"Then I'm Britney Spears."

"Oh my God!" Penny reacted excited and in awe. "I am such a big fan, and…" She looked down. "I love your shoes! I've got a pair just like them!"

"Really?" Britney hit the button for the fifth floor several times to move the elevator faster.

"Except my pair vanished." Penny was looking Britney's shoes over. "I looked everywhere for them."

"Did you look under your bed behind the pile of dirty clothes?" Britney seemed oddly nervous and distracted.

"No, I…" Penny did a double take as she reached the fourth floor. "How did you know I have dirty clothes under my bed?"

"We all have dirty clothes under the bed…." The look-alike and sneak thief tried to cover up sneaking into Penny's apartment to borrow her clothes. The elevator dinged on the fourth floor and opened to the tape and banner still up on the outside. "Oh, look, here's your floor! It was so nice meeting you!"

"It was so nice meeting you too!" Penny pushed past the tape and started pulling it off. "Maybe we can hang out some time?"

"Yeah, maybe…" Britney noticed a stray hair on Penny's uniform from the Cheesecake Factory and meticulously pulled it off her. "Hair…" She backed up to the rear of the elevator. "Bye…" Her heart was pounding! The doors closed, and all she could hear was Grandpa screaming about her using magic in front of muggles, slang used by British practitioners for non-magic folk. Her brother, Jesse, was going to kick her ass. About to discard the hair, she paused and looked at it closer. The elevator opened to the fifth floor.

"You and me are going to have a little fun in this building." She had her first hair specimen from a non-famous person.


	8. Chapter 8

8

Since she had her schedule changed at the restaurant, Penny now had every Wednesday off with alternating Tuesdays and Thursdays. With the shift, she finally had the time to clean the dishes in her sink and throw her regular laundry in the basket to take down to the laundry room. Dressed in striped shorts and a light blue tank top, she gathered her stuff together to do her laundry and headed out to the elevator with the out of order strip still on it, pushing the button as Leonard and Sheldon came up with their regular Wednesday take-out. Noticing her at the doors, Leonard scowled confusingly.

"What are you doing?"

"It's working now." Penny insisted. "I came up in it last night."

"You came up in it?" Sheldon had a chance to taunt her. "And how far did you get in it?"

"All the way!" Penny re-hit the button. "Watch!" She stepped back with her laundry basket and waited with the guys. There was no humming noises, no lights coming on and no activity from the elevator shaft. Whatever mystical enchantments Jesse's father-in-law had applied to the elevator to get it to work had expired once again, but they did not know anything about that or the secret incantation. All Penny knew was that she had taken a ride in it yesterday evening, and for some reason, it wasn't working today.

"It's not working." Penny hit the button again and again. "What's going on here?! I rode in this yesterday!"

"Honestly, Leonard…" Sheldon looked away and back derisively. "You can't find someone more worthy to try and propagate with your progeny?" He turned to unlock and enter the apartment.

"Penny, look…" Leonard tried to be rational and supportive. "Maybe you just dreamed it."

"Dreamed it, my ass!" She dropped her laundry and started pulling the doors open. "I rode in this thing with Britney Spears!"

"Britney Spears?" Leonard did not know many celebrities beyond the worlds of science fiction and fantasy, but he did know the teen pop princess a bit more better after meeting her yesterday. "The Britney Spears?"

"Leonard, my friend…" Jesse and Lizzie came walking down without the enchanted elevator in their most opulent attire. "What's the problem here?" He was in a tuxedo, and Lizzie was in a fine off-the-shoulder dress with a white wrap and long white gloves for a night. They looked at Penny clawing at the elevator then to Leonard. She looked at them, seemed to come to an understanding in light of the weird stuff going on since the Vannacutts moved in and then descended to recollect her dirty clothes on the floor of the landing.

"Oh, nothing…" Leonard covered for Penny. "Just a little confusion."

"Leonard, I swear!" Penny looked up from the floor. "The elevator was working the other day!"

"How is that even possible?" He asked her.

Jesse looked back upon his wife.

"So one blonde has one teeny-tiny hallucination, who's it going to hurt!" Lizzie commented secretly and innocently. He grinned as her loyal servant and kissed her hand through the glove, placing his arm around her waist as they continued on their way. Lizzie's mother was watching the girls, her sister-in-law was about to go out and her husband was restraining his passion for her until the dance floor.

"Penny, do you want some help?" Leonard looked to her on the floor.

"Not from someone who doesn't believe me!" The blonde one stood with her basket ready to take the stairs.

"I believe you!" He tried to convince her and followed her down the stairs. "I mean… don't you think this could be connected someway with Jesse and his weird family from upstairs…" His voice trailed off down the stairs of the building. As they moved through the lobby of the building for the laundry room, Howard and Raj came in from the front of the building and came up the stairs. At that moment, another voice started coming closer to the boys' floor, and another girl who looked like Penny Parker came down from the fifth floor. Dressed in a violet blouse with blue jeans, a leather jacket and knee-high alligator boots, she came down from the top floor with a lot of personality, a musical swagger to her step and a bounce and sway to her rhythm.

"_I'm on the right track, baby - I was born this way - Born this way…. Don't be a drag, be a queen_…" She was singing under breath then paused on the top landing of the descending stairwell. "Crap, I still can't get that song out of my head."

"Penny…" Howard and Raj came around and met her coming down. "You're looking hot. Where you going?"

"Clubbing…"

"You're not having Thai with us?" Howard asked. Penny looked to be thinking it over.

"I am now…" She turned round and followed them up into Leonard and Sheldon's apartment. Sheldon looked up at them entering.

"I got the movie ready to start." He replied. "We'll start when Leonard gets back w…" He looked at Penny removing her jacket and tossing it over the back of the sofa. She was in different clothes than a few minutes ago. She was also about to sit in his spot. Raj and Howard stopped her by calling out.

"Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa!"

"What? What? What?" Penny reacted confused.

"You're about to sit in Sheldon's spot." Howard told her. Penny looked over to Sheldon staring back at her like a vulture protecting its property. She should have known better.

"Ohhhh…" She reacted as if she had forgot and hopped to the chair. "Yeah, I guess I wasn't paying attention. So…" She looked around with one leg over her other leg. "What are we doing?"

"Tonight, we are watching "Dune," the director's cut with an additional eleven minutes over the theatrical version." Sheldon moved to his spot on the couch.

"Have I seen it before?" Penny tried some Thai.

"You saw the original cut." Howard pointed out.

"So, it should be like an entirely different movie." Penny had dinner with the guys.

"You know…" Sheldon looked at the guys. "She's finally getting this." At that moment, Leonard came in from following Penny to the laundry room and trying to convince her that he didn't think she was crazy. Dropping his keys in the plate by the door, he turned to find Penny again in a blouse and jeans and eating Thai food with them in the apartment. Confused, he looked around once, again and looked at her once more.

"Where did you come from?" He asked.

"The stork brought me." Penny beamed secretly to him and sipped her tea.

"No, I meant…."

"Honestly, Leonard, please keep up." Sheldon remarked. "Penny is eating Thai food and watching "Dune" with us. Although, she did whimsically establish her existence through an exaggerated observation of the legend that storks has harbingers of good luck deliver infants to childless couples, she has regularly…"

"But I just left you heading to the basement!" Leonard pointed out the discrepancy. "And when did you change your clothes?"

"Who's hallucinating now, Sparky?" She cajoled him a bit before the guys and broke into a big grin. Howard and Raj chuckled a bit, and Sheldon started the movie. Taking his seat, Leonard looked at Penny and took his share of the dinner and reflected a bit confused. He turned and looked at Penny a bit curious. Her hair seemed longer than it was before. Her demeanor was different than someone who just minutes ago was distraught and embarrassed about a non-working elevator. She seemed spirited and upbeat, almost a different person.

"How you feeling?" He asked her.

"Perky." She grinned to him.

"Are we going to have talking through the movie?" Sheldon asked.

"It's just the opening credits!" Leonard looked back to his ex-girlfriend. "You hallucinated the elevator working!"

"The elevator doesn't work, Leonard." Penny picked at her Thai.

"I know that!"

Raj whispered in Howard's ear.

"I'll ask." Howard spoke for him. "What's up with the elevator?"

"Penny said it was working."

"No, I didn't."

"The credits are over, the movie is now starting." Sheldon raised his voice. "No more talking!"

"Is the elevator working?" Howard asked.

"Penny said it was."

"Is that what we heard yesterday?"

"Come here…" Penny stood and led Leonard out of the room. "We're having sex."

"In the middle of an argument? Are you… oh, okay…" He followed her down the hall to his bedroom. Behind in the living room, the guys looked up in disbelief at what just happened. One minute they were fighting, the next they were surrendering to their animalistic passion. Sheldon groaned.

"Not this again…" He never liked Penny as a potential mate for Leonard. Shaking his head, he just sat in his spot and ate his Thai dinner. Could this evening get any more uncomfortable?

"Food here?" Up from the laundry room, Penny stuck her head in through the front entrance of the apartment. Striding inside in her tank top and striped shorts, she elicited a lot of weird and confused reactions. Sheldon tried to rationalize the incident, and Howard looked back and around from the door to the hall for the bedrooms. Raj just froze where he was. There were two Pennys?

"Howard…" Sheldon had jumped up from his seat and was sitting on the back of the sofa. "Did you perfect cloning?"

"If I did, don't you'd think I'd be first to know about it?" Howard was speechless.

Raj suddenly broke his silence and whispered something in Howard's ear. Sitting in the extra chair, Penny picked at the Thai food, looked at the movie then noticed the stunned looks on the guys.

"So, what are we watching?" She asked them. "What's up? Where's Leonard?"

"Penny…" Howard spoke slowly and unsure. "Do you have a twin sister?"

"One sister, not a twin…" She spoke matter-of-factly. "Why?"

"Because…" Howard started.

"There's another Penny having coitus with Leonard in his room." Sheldon finished.

Penny stopped eating and looked toward them. They all looked rattled and unsure. This was not a joke.

"What?!" She reacted confused and disgusted.

"Penny…" Sheldon looked away tiredly annoyed and tried again. "Let me explain this in terms a person with your low-income rural community college-drop out up-bringing can understand." He took a brief breath. "Leonard is in his room having sex with a girl that looks exactly like you."

Offended and confused, Penny looked at Sheldon to Howard and Raj and back to Sheldon.

"But don't take this the wrong way." Sheldon continued. "Perhaps this is the girl Leonard is supposed to be with. From my few seconds of getting to know her, she seems much smarter and more intelligent. Perhaps, this is the Penny Two-Point-Oh version much more in tune with someone with Leonard's intellect."

"What?!"

"Penny, I don't see how I could make this simpler."

"Another Penny?" Penny answered.

"Yes." Sheldon confirmed.

"A girl who looks just like me?"

"Yes."

"With Leonard?"

"Yes…"

Raj whispered in Howard's ear.

"What do you mean dibs on the old Penny?!" Howard looked annoyed. "If anyone has dibs on the old Penny it should be me!"

"No dibs!" Penny freaked and jumped up to stop Leonard then stopped where she was.

"Whoa!" Other Penny came out in the blouse while zipping her jeans up and re-securing her belt. "That was fun!" She came strolling out to recollect her leather jacket. "He's probably going to sleep a while… Oh, hi there!" She noticed Penny. "I'm going clubbing. I hope you all enjoy the movie." She took her jacket and headed out of the apartment. "Thanks for the Thai…." She looked back at them. Penny watched her twin with her face heading out in the leather jacket trying to figure out what to do. Was this somehow connected to meeting Britney Spears in the elevator yesterday?

"Now, this is someone Leonard should be dating!" Sheldon announced.


	9. Chapter 9

9

Howard was in the lunch line of the university's cafeteria. He looked over the sandwiches, salads and assorted cold plates and wished just once he could get a nice non-kosher meal to violate his mother's strict Jewish regime but then buckled under and got the turkey sandwich with a side salad. Raj was coming up by him. He took the tuna salad sandwich with the broccoli salad.

"Howard? Howard Wolowitz?" A voice called Howard through his right ear. He and Raj turned in unison to the source of the voice.

"Hi, I'm William. William Samms…" He looked like Tom Cruise's nerdy younger brother. "I'm from the computer graphics lab. I was told you might be able to help me on a project I'm working on."

"Sure, what do you need?"

"I need someone who can write and link several algorithms of code." William nervously moved his leather binder from his right hand to his left hand to take a note from his shirt pocket.

"What are you working on?" Raj asked.

"I can't say…" William handed Howard the note. "It's a bit hard to describe. Anyway, the university is renting me this location to work at. Can you be there this Monday about eight or nine in the morning?"

"Yeah, sure…" Howard agreed, and William thanked him before turning away and leaving the cafeteria. Howard and Raj looked at each other, chuckled a bit then paid for their lunches and wandered over to their usual table with the guys. Leonard was acting hung over, slowly stirring more sugar into his tea, and Sheldon was uncharacteristically silent, mentally trying to figure out the idiosyncrasies and eccentrics of neighbors far above his own. Raj sat down next to Sheldon; Howard sat down next to Leonard stewing in his confusion.

"Are we going to talk at all about last night?" Leonard finally spoke. "I get seduced by a clone of Penny who leaves scratch marks down my back at the same time while she's in the living room with you guys, and no one says anything about it. You don't think that's weird."

Raj and Howard looked at each other waiting for the other to start talking first. Sheldon was still trying to rationalize it.

"Dibs on the new Penny!" Raj and Howard echoed together then looked disgustedly at each other.

"Oh, come on…" Leonard reacted logically. "Doesn't anyone think she could be connected to the Vannacutt's upstairs? What about all the look-alikes going up and coming down?"

"Friends of the family?" Raj guessed.

"Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers?"

"Star Wars fans?" Howard responded.

"Things are getting surreal in the building." Leonard commented.

"Maybe for you guys…" Sheldon spoke up. "But someone here is getting to go into space…" He grinned pompously knowing he deserved it. "That leaves it your problem to solve before I get back."

"That's your solution?" Leonard looked at him.

"Yes."

"Hey, Coopah…" Strolling past the table, Barry Kripke was another physicist employed by the institute. "I heard you could be going up into space. I was asked a few qwestions about you fwom a Fedewal agent." He also had a very odd way of speaking.

"Yes, I am…" Sheldon grinned. "And I'm sure you gave me a thoroughly glowing recommendation, right?"

"You kidding, wight?" He looked to Leonard. "Wenard, what did you tell the guy?"

"What? Well," Leonard thought about it the thought to pass the buck. "Howard, what did you tell him?"

"Me?" Howard chewed the part of his sandwich in his mouth and swallowed it. "Well, I told him about how you like trains, and… Raj, what did you say about Sheldon?"

"Everything."

"Oh, good…" Sheldon started grinning satisfactorily.

"I mentioned how you put me down for being Hindu, you put Howard down for just being an engineer…" Raj mentioned. "How you created your own physics team, feuded with Penny, created a one-sided roommate agreement, boss us around…"

"I'm not hearing anything bad." Sheldon was getting excited.

"They don't give those FBI agents very good notebooks." Raj added. "Three hours in, I had to loan him more paper to take notes." He sipped his tea on the table. "I also might have used the word, "nutcase," more than a few times. If we hadn't been up past midnight, I might have gone another hour or two."

Sheldon stopped smiling.

"Contrary to what you told him," He responded. "My reputation speaks for itself."

"Yeah, but your puh-sonawity scweams psychopath." Kripke carried onward to eat his lunch at his spot by the wall. Sheldon shot him a look.

"I'm not cwazy - crazy!" Sheldon was catching Kripke's speech patterns. "My mother had me tested!" He simmered down to eat his chicken salad sandwich. "I truly doubt there is anything any of you could have said that would have kept me from going into space."

"Dr. Cooper…" A voice from administration sounded.

"President Siebert…" Sheldon stood uncharacteristically chivalrous when he was about to get something he felt he deserved. "So, when do I leave for my astronaut training?"

"You don't."

"Well, that makes it a bit difficult for me to be prepared for the trip, isn't it?" Sheldon reacted unsure how to act.

"NASA called me to let you know they are going with Dr. Tannenbaum from the Seattle Institute of Applied Science." He watched as Sheldon reacted crushed and sat down upset from the news. Leonard, Raj and Howard also groaned. They were so looking forward for the summer without Sheldon.

"But why?" Sheldon slowly looked up.

"NASA says you passed your security screening, but you failed your personality screening across the board." Siebert announced a bit annoyed that he was not getting a summer without Sheldon. "They felt they could not justify your safety after trapping you in space with eleven other men. In fact, several of the other astronauts who had heard about you on reputation alone requested to be returned to Earth immediately if you came anywhere near the project."

Raj started whispering to Howard who suddenly started laughing. Even Leonard cracked a secret smile.

"So, let me get this straight…" Sheldon looked at them then back to the Siebert. "I am not going into space."

"No…" Siebert answered. "You're stuck annoying the hell out of us here on Earth instead. Good day…." He turned away from the table. Showing a rare emotional display, Sheldon sighed and looked down to his dinner on the plate. He had wanted to go into outer space since he was a little kid, and now he was prevented from going by people who didn't seem much different than the classmates in high school who stole his books, called him names and pulled his britches down during assemblies to hang his pants on the flagpole.

"Apparently Sheldon's ego is the one thing that NASA can't get into space." Howard started giggling.

Sheldon shot him a look.

"Well," Leonard was smiling. "It looks like someone isn't going into space." He leaned back dreamily. "This is going to be the most quiet week since I moved in with Sheldon…."

"Now, listen here…"

"Who wants to bet Sheldon can't stop talking for a day?" Raj leaned forward.

"Day? I say one hour." Howard pulled a twenty-dollar bill out.

"Hour?" Leonard shook his head. "I say one minute!"

"Now, you can't hold me to…"

"I win!" Leonard took the forty dollars.


	10. Chapter 10

10

Leonard and Sheldon stood outside the apartment building as a hearse pulled up alongside them. Long and black with white curtains in the back windows, it stopped at the curb and the ignition was turned off just before a driver who stood almost seven feet tall emerged. After the driver's side door opened, the huge hulking figure stood up a few feet from them, took a minute to polish a spot with his sleeve on the roof of the vehicle then came around to open the back. His head was roughly flat, but not completely. It just looked square-like as if someone had shaved off the top of his head to remove his brain and then allow hair to grow over it. His skin tone was odd as well. It was pale, almost white, with vague light grayish to pale green coloring as if he'd been pieced together from body parts of the dead that had somehow healed together. Jovially chuckling and waving to them like a giant kid, he wore a dark blazer that barely fitted his huge shoulders; his sleeves were a bit short for his arms causing his wrists to stick out. His sweater underneath was a dark gray, his trousers a matching shade to the jacket. Turning to the back of the hearse, he lifted the lever to the back of the hearse, and Leonard's eyes widened and feet took a step back as the hearse driver slid out the shelf from the back with someone laying in it.

"Excellent driving, Harold!" Jesse answered from the back end, stretched out his arms and jumped up and on to the asphalt outside the building. Dressed in a matching pinstriped suit, he pulled a wad of bills from his pocket and handed his brother-in-law a hundred dollar bill. "It was so relaxing, I almost fell asleep."

"Well, I told you it was comfortable." Harold mugged and postured a bit.

"Pick me up in the morning again, 8AM!" Jesse pulled a cigar from his interior jacket pocket as Harold closed the back and returned to the driver's seat to drive away from the curb. "Leonard, my old friend…" The eccentric lawyer hopped up on the curb with his cigar in his right hand and looking for a match with his left. "How goes your day?"

"Ow!" Sheldon winced as Jesse struck his match off the top of his head. "Listen you…" He shook his finger at Jesse puffing his cigar. Leonard looked at him to remind of his bet and he drew silent.

"I'm sorry - all questions must be submitted at the end of the tour…" Jesse dealt with Sheldon by confusing him then looked back to Leonard. "Leonard, my boy…" He placed his arm around him as they entered the building as if they were brothers. "The wife said you were looking for me. What's on your mind?"

"Jesse…" Leonard was put off by the guy's sudden friendship toward him but not offended by it. "The guys and I were talking…."

"What's all this "Jesse" stuff?" Jesse stopped before the elevators and was about to hit the button but remembered that Leonard and Sheldon was with him seemed to change his mind and follow them up the stairs. "Leonard, we're friends. I'm going to let you call me by my first name instead of my middle name."

"Jesse is your middle name?" Leonard looked to Sheldon and back to Jesse. "What's your first name?"

"Nostradamus…" Puffing on his cigar, Jesse looked back at them on the middle landing and led the way. Leonard looked to Sheldon once again and back to Jesse.

"Look, Jesse…" Leonard started again. "I've got to ask you about all the strange noises and people in the building."

"Strange noises and people?" Jesse puffed his cigar as they approached the second floor. "I haven't heard anything."

"The trains, the explosions, the scratching sounds, the creaking…"

"Oh, those noises!" Jesse reacted surprised and gestured with his Cuban. He continued to the second floor. "Leonard, my boy, you gotta understand something. I've got two beautiful little girls. Unfortunately, they've never lived in an apartment building, and they really don't know how to act in one, so they're going to behave much the same way as the old family house in Oregon."

"You're from Oregon?" Sheldon reacted very haughty.

"Sheldon…" Leonard reminded him of the bet.

"Drat…" Sheldon drew quiet again.

"Salem, Oregon…" Jesse was quick to point out on the third floor. "Leonard, have you ever seen that beautiful idyllic old estate on the hills of property over Interstate 210?" They ascended the stairs to the fourth floor.

"That creepy, spooky old relic of a mansion filled with bats?" Leonard had driven past it from afar.

"That's the one!" They ascended to the fourth floor. "I own it. Well, I'm supposed to own it. The family and I were supposed to move into it the first of the month, but the property and grounds are stuck in escrow a bit longer and we had to find other lodging here until the mess gets fixed, and since we were asked to leave the hotel…"

"What happened at the hotel?" Leonard had to ask.

"My brother, Chester, tried to have a barbeque on the balcony, and things got a bit…" He played with his cigar as he tried thinking of the right word. "Complicated." He placed his cigar back into his mouth. "Hope they were able to stop the fire before it reached the lobby..." He mumbled briefly under breath. "Anyway, we should be here only a few weeks… two months at the most."

"Oh no… Is he staying up there with you?" Sheldon wanted to know if there was a potential arsonist in the building.

"Sheldon…"

"Drat…" Sheldon drew quiet again.

"I don't know where he's staying." Jesse paused outside the guys' apartment. "I never asked." From over his head, he heard a noise from his apartment over the guys. It sounded like a bowling ball going down a bowling alley. They all tilted their heads up to the noise, following the noise passing over their heads on its destination and then heard the loud crash of bowling pins being struck and scattered. Jesse started chuckling.

"It sounds like my sister, Marilyn, caught the spare!" He started grinning. Leonard commiserated over this eccentric existence, but Sheldon was more willing to end it more quickly.

"Look, I have a 187 IQ, seventeen doctorates, I'm the youngest scientist to ever receive the Stevenson Award, I've studied abroad in Mecklenberg, Amsterdam, Heidelberg and Copenhagen, have published over twenty-two papers in the fields of physics and sub-atomic research…. I am not about to let some lesser-brained lower life-form without a degree or even a doctorate treat me like some stone of phosphorus good for only striking matches." He glared at Jesse busily puffing his cigar deep in thought. Barely listening, Jesse was blindly staring toward Penny's door deep in thought before he acknowledged Sheldon by him.

"Sheldon…"

"Drat, this is hard!" Sheldon drew quiet again.

"I'm sorry, Sparky… you must really open your mouth a bit wider when you speak." He paused to move his cigar back and forth before Sheldon's face. "I didn't hear a single thing you said!"

Sheldon stared at him very annoyed. Jesse just didn't recognize nor cower in his presence like the guys. At that moment, Penny suddenly opened her door upset and exasperated. "Out! Out!" She was calling to someone. "No, not by the window! The door! The door!" Coming around her were two little brunette girls in similar matching outfits. They were the same girls the guys had seen before in the apartment the other morning; they looked like Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez trapped in early prepubescence. At seven years old, little Samantha had beautiful long dark hair with spirited mischief-filled brown eyes and perfect alabaster skin with light pink lips. She wore a dark high-buttoned dress with a dark brown skirt to her knees and high socks with flat-soled shoes. Half a foot shorter, Nikki was five-and-a-half years old, dressed exactly like her sister with two braided pigtails hanging off her shoulders and looking up with two effervescent brown eyes excitedly and mischievously up to her father.

"What are you two little cadavers doing in this nice lady's apartment?" Jesse looked over his progeny, took Nikki by the arm and pulled her up to his eye level like a monkey climbing up her father.

"Exploring…." Samantha looked over all the adult faces. "You said we couldn't play in the basement anymore."

"It's very dirty down there..." Jesse told Leonard.

"They crawled in through my window!" Penny announced exasperatedly. "What kind of kids crawl outside the walls of a building?!"

"Don't all kids like to climb?" Jesse jostled Nikki with one hand and taking his cigar from his mouth with the other. Sheldon made a face to Leonard silently to deal with the matter and turned to head frustratingly into his apartment. Sighing a bit, Jesse jostled his baby girl looking at him then looked down to Samantha. "Listen, girls, I know it's a lot of fun to climb, but you could fall and hurt someone underneath you." He gestured with his cigar. "Now, we don't want that, do we?"

"No, father…" The girls lowered their heads.

"Great!" Jesse placed his cigar in his teeth and dropped Nikki back down to her feet. "Now, go tell your mother I'll be up in a Transylvanian minute." He smiled and chuckled to see them heading up the stairs by Penny's door. Penny and Leonard shared a covert look between themselves.

"They're not normal little girls, are they?" Leonard watched.

"Oh, they're normal enough…."

"You're not going to punish them?" Penny asked.

"Well, I could…" Jesse puffed on his cigar. "But you see, if I tell them not to do something, they're just going to want to do it anyway, but if I explain the consequences, well…." He paused a moment. "Penny, you know, the wife and I were kind of hoping to go out again tonight, and grand-mama went back to Salem…"

"Salem?"

"Oregon…" Leonard pointed out.

"Good memory…" Jesse pointed at Leonard with his cigar. "Anyway, we could use a babysitter tonight. Would you like to do it?"

Penny looked to Leonard and back to Jesse.

"Not for a thousand dollars!"

"I'll make it two thousand then…." Jesse postured with his cigar. "See you at 6:30." He placed his stogie to his lips and turned to prance up the stairs. Penny stood shocked. Babysit those creepy little girls?

"What the hell happened?" She asked Leonard.

"Sounds like you have a babysitting gig…" He grinned and turned to his apartment chuckling under his breath.


	11. Chapter 11

11

Penny was suddenly recalling ever Halloween she had ever had growing up in Omaha. She had grown up on a farm in a very rural area almost three miles from the nearest neighbors where the closest structures to her home was an old barn and her father's old wood shed, and the next closest structures were an old outhouse her brothers had shot full of holes and an old barn tilting to one side in the woods said to be left over from before the Civil War. She was not doing a lot of trick-or-treating in that area, but her Aunt Gracie did drive her and her siblings back to her neighborhood in nearby Prescott to go trick or treating door-to-door as a little girl. One year, the local church had did up the old firehouse as a haunted house to raise money, but that place with its fake ghosts and plastic spiders was nothing like the Vannacutt's apartment. Being in their apartment to take care of Samantha and Nikki while they were out was bringing back every one of her old Halloween memories. The place looked exactly like what she expected a haunted house might look like with old period furniture, a number of portraits, candelabras with candles for ambience and shelves of dusty books and bric-a-brac, but it was the atmosphere the other objects gave the room that bothered her. The first thing she had seen when she arrived had been the electric chair against the wall, old rusted and derelict and referred to by Lizzie as her father's favorite chair. From there, interspersed amidst the old Victorian furniture were several pieces that defied rational logic. Every so often, something that looked like a crow peeked out from the cuckoo clock, noticed Penny then silently drew back inside. The coffee table in the conversation area looked like a large square coffin made of a darkly stained wood with drawers in it. Instead of a modern plasma TV, they had an old Sixties television inside a baroque wood cabinet with the tattered cloth covered speakers and an old heavily ornate pewter lamp up top that looked like a gnarled tree holding up a thin ceramic shade decorated with tiny black markings of runic symbols. A metal skull, the dusty leather-bound Vannacutt family bible, small statues of insane ceramic gargoyles around five inches tall danced around the top and an old wood box of Cuban cigars covered the top of the TV, but then it looked like Jesse had boxes of cigars all over the place. Over the TV looking over the room was a black and white photo in a large oval frame was Jesse's parents, Victor and Gwendolyn Vannacutt. Tall, haughty and proud with his head tipped back and his eyes solemnly narrowed with a monocle in his right eye and a thick back mustache and goatee, he looked like Count Dracula as a mortician, one hand perched mightily on a cane and his other arm passionately around the waist of his bride and Jesse's mother. Gwendolyn was tall and beautiful with piercing brown eyes, fair skin and incredibly long dark brunette hair waving down and around her like a cape. Her dress in the photo was an ornate gown resembling a spider web spreading around and shaping her impressive figure. The nameplate on the bottom in silver read simply, "Victor and Gwendolyn Vannacutt - 1933 to ?"

As powerfully haunting their portrait was, it had nothing on the rest of the portraits in the room. At eight years old, Jesse was already dressing like a mortician and standing by his tall powerful father, or held up by the man on his shoulder proudly beaming with Jesse's bald older brother standing by his side holding a wad of dynamite. In another photo, the other brother Horace accompanied Jesse and Chester. Also dressed in black, he had crazy dark hair, thick eyebrows, a crazy look to his eyes and was standing on a magician's trunk marked in lettering Penny couldn't read. There were many more photos of Lizzie as a girl in an old kitchen and as a little girl with her six sisters. Several photos of Samantha and Nikki adorned the shelves and hall of the apartment, but some of the pictures just looked… odd. As an adult, Horace stared out from one hysterically and psychotically ecstatic as if he had just received his greatest joy. Uncle Jacob Bathory in his portrait made a face as if he smelled something bad, and in another photo, Great Aunt Ingrid looked gruff and masculine. Penny was quite sure she was a man until she read the name in the frame. Cousins Myron and Taybert Vannacutt looked like little kids until Penny looked closer and saw they were middle-aged men in shorts and striped shirts with tam o'shanter caps standing side by side on a yard before a large dark edifice, but the creepiest period photo was the one in the kitchen over the table of Lizzie's late mother, Constance Victoria Whatsoever-Bathory. Proud, regal and beautiful, she had delicate features and wide impressive eyes like a young girl with the aspects of womanhood, her dark hair pulled into a tight bun with more long hair hanging loose. She was dressed in a high-collared 19th Century dress seen only from the waist up, but despite the fact the photo was in black and white, Penny could tell she had powerful green eyes as if the woman's spirit was watching her from the image and waiting to take over her body. Wherever Penny stood or sat, she felt that woman's face watching her. She tried covering it with a dishtowel, but it inexplicably got pulled off and returned back to the handle on the large electric stove. The worst part was that the entire place seemed to breath and creak and groan. Penny could hear the walls groaning around her as if there was a rainstorm outside, but despite the fact the night was cold and still, she thought she heard the patter of rain. As she prepared the drinks for the girls, Penny looked up to the glass eyes of a stuffed large black bird mounted to a block of wood. The Vannacutts liked their stuffed animals. They had a huge black grizzly bear in one corner of the living room, a white barn owl on the shelf by the door and a three foot long crocodile stuck to a piece over the window. The alcove over Leonard and Sheldon's front window had Jesse's desk covered in books with a crystal ball, a fake plastic skull filled with licorice, yet another box of cigars and another stuffed black raven perched on a model tin mausoleum with skeletons crawling out of its windows. Altogether, the apartment was an attack on Penny's eyes, ears and senses on her arrival, but for two thousand dollars, she would even stay the night.

"Okay girls…" Penny arrived at their bedroom door. "Are you getting in bed?"

"Yes…" Samantha tiredly echoed inside the room. Nikki hadn't said a thing all night, but Penny had seen her hovering near her sister and lying on the floor with her as they watched and laughed giggling and cheering through a showing of the movie "Poltergeist" on the Chiller Network.

"Are you coming to get your milk?"

"Just put it under the door…"

Penny looked down and saw what looked like a pet door in their bedroom door. It was labeled "Samantha, Monica and It." Looking away unnervingly, Penny gasped a bit and looked at the end of the hall. Whatever it was the family called Spot had been lying in the threshold of Jesse and Elizabeth's bedroom. It's head and forequarters hidden from view in the room, it looked like a small stegosaurus roughly twelve to fifteen feet long with a toy ball stuck on one spike in its tails, one leg curled up just outside the door under it and a plaid blanket perched over one back plate and hanging down the other side. It seemed to have been asleep during her stay; it's rhythmic reptilian purring in the room and an occasional scratching sound as it had a dream. Over it, Penny could see just the top of Jesse and Lizzie's canopy bed, which looked more like a funeral display. She just held the girl's little hatch open, slid the tray with their glasses of milk on it underneath then stood up as she heard the girls whispering and giggling as they took their drinks. She heard Nikki talking to her sister in a whisper through the door.

"Now, go on to bed…" She told them.

"That's what we're doing…" Samantha echoed back. As Penny turned away, she heard the creaking aching sounds of casket lids creaking closed and paused to look back.

"Holy crap on a cracker…" She mumbled and strided back out to the kitchen. Despite the creepy décor and haunted atmosphere, the room wasn't very bad. Lizzie kept it meticulous and immaculate with a series of cookbooks on the counter, a huge spice rack, a solid steel dishwasher and a large industrial refrigerator. She had been offered anything she wanted in the refrigerator, and as she looked into it, she saw numerous delicacies surrounded by soft mist and water vapor befitting a stay-at-home mom. Lizzie obviously cooked a lot and had leftovers from several meals. The door was full of jars of pickles, olives, bottles of wine and champagne, containers of exotic and typical ingredients such as small hot peppers and homemade jars of jams and jellies and two boxes of Chinese take-out, but Penny forgot where she was for the moment and took a shallow container of sushi and deviled eggs, a bowl of fried chicken and grabbed a can of generic soda from the bottom.

"Frankenstein Fizz…" She read the can. "I'll try it…" For all she knew, it had been a promotional Halloween thing. Popping it open, she sat at the sofa, briefly looked up at the portrait of Grandma Constance watching her and flared her eyes a bit spooked as she took the remote to watch television.

"Submitted for your approval…" Red Serling appeared on the set. "A young blonde attractive girl from Nebraska fighting to make an acting career in California…"

Penny switched the channel.

"…alone in a creepy apartment…"

She switched the channel again as she bit into a drumstick.

"…and watching over two adorable…"

She switched again.

"…brunette girls with an interest…"

She switched again.

"…in the macabre."

"What the hell?" Penny scowled confusingly. "Their cable is suddenly screwed up. They get "The Twilight Zone" on every channel."

"Little does she know…" Serling continued as Penny started shooting through channels.

"That her evening…"

"Is about to take…"

"A weird new…"

"Direction into…"

"Leonard, please help me baby-sit!" A girl's familiar voice briefly popped forth.

"The slippery slopes into…"

"Up next…" A new voice called out from the TV. "Back to back episodes of "Eight Simple Rules," "According to Jim" and "Grounded for Life."

"Finally…" Penny dropped the remote now that she had fixed it. She sipped her soda, dropped her drumstick and bit into a chicken breast.

"But first…" The voice of the TV announcer responded. "Let's return to another classic episode of… "The Twilight Zone!""

Penny looked up with eyes flared and frustrated and turned it off entirely. Lizzie had a few cooking magazines around, and Jesse had a few hunting and antique magazines as well. Picking up a book on historical houses, Penny had another deviled egg, sipped her soda and thumbed through pages of historic old houses, deserted structures and abandoned hospitals and sanitariums. On the wall behind the electric chair, the cuckoo clock charmed once and the door popped open to reveal a raven revealing its head.

"11:45 and they're still not home yet!" It screeched in a scratchy and pitchy little voice, cawed loudly then pulled its head back inside its tiny house.

"No, they're not…" Penny remarked then lifted her head. She was talking to a live bird in a clock? If she didn't want the money so much to cover her debts, she would have called and paid another babysitter to do the job for her. Tired, she confessed she was creeped out. The eyes of the portraits and stuffed creatures were staring at her. Shadows creeped along the walls of the candles dripping in the room. The apartment groaned and creaked around her, and beyond that, she heard footsteps and clanking chains. Why was it those girls were not scared to live here? She was the babysitter, and she felt she was constantly being watched. The creaking footsteps were getting closer, dragging chains around from its ankles. Slowly turning her head to the door, Penny heard the doorknob turning, a key rattling and creaking open as Grandpa Bathory entered the room wearing his regal Transylvanian grand attire and long cape whose collar extended up around his head. He had a full round face with light pale skin and two sparking youthful brown eyes with only faint traces of age in his face. His lips were thin, but his chin was a round on large neck. His dark and silver hair was brushed backward on his head with twinges of white whiskers around his ears. Replacing his keys to his pocket, he looked to Penny catching her breath.

"Hi, Penny, how are you doing?" He responded to her jovially and effervescent, sincerely eager to be friends with her. "Were the girls good?"

"There were little angels…" Penny shined honestly. The apartment creaked and groaned a bit.

"Well, good…" Grandpa looked around a bit surprised. "I promised them a hundred bucks each if they behaved themselves."

"A hundred bucks?"

"They let me off easy!" Grandpa postured a bit surprised. "They must have liked you; they usually take me for $500 each!" He noticed the creaking sounds himself and looked around the room, reaching behind the Victrola wind-up record player from the Late Nineteenth Century and pulling out a CD player playing the noises. The creaking stopped once he turned it off.

"Those little scamps…" He pulled out a wad of bills from his pocket to pay her the two thousand Jesse had offered her. "Let me go ahead and pay you. Jesse and my daughter could be out another two to three hours…" He noticed Penny eating the leftovers from the refrigerator. "I'm glad you found something to eat. Like I always say, fried monitor lizard is always better the following day!"

Penny made a face, grabbed some Kleenex from the coffee table and started spitting out was in her mouth. Cringing and clutching her stomach, she placed her regurgitated chewed mess in the empty container that once had the sushi and deviled eggs.

"Did you try the piranha and deviled iguana eggs?"

Penny was still squirming and cringing in her seat as she held her stomach. Not thinking, she grabbed the soda and started drinking it then stopped. Having counted out twenty $100 bills, Grandpa handed it out to her as she showed him the can.

"What's Frankenstein Fizz?" She was scared to ask.

"Oh, just some sample drinks from a novelty place Jesse invested in, but I'm not crazy about it."

"Why not?"

"I don't like cranberry juice." He answered. Penny reacted relieved and drank it down after taking the money. "Well, there you go, sweetie…" Grandpa hung his cape behind the door with the others family coats on a coat rack. "The cavalry is here. I can take over from here…" He showed her to the door.

"So…" Penny looked back. "How was your costume party?" She looked at his Dracula costume.

"What costume party?"

"Never mind…" Penny stepped out and took a few steps before pausing halfway down the steps to her apartment. "Monitor lizard?" She prayed she had some Pepto Bismo in her bathroom. She was brushing her teeth and her tongue tonight. Descending downstairs, she started pulling her key from her pocket and heard the spectral elevator going through the building again once more. She was really starting to believe the building was haunted. When it opened in front of her, she looked at herself standing in it. Party girl Penny in the leather jacket and hot pants with the tiny t-shirt looked at babysitter Penny with the sweater and blue jeans, waved with a nervous surprised grin and stunned look then pounded the button again to close the door. Watching her clone vanish in the nonexistent elevator, Penny paused and tried to mentally dismiss it.

"Must be the piranha sushi…" She tried to convince herself it was a hallucination, but eventually, she wasn't so sure. Apparently, the sounds of the working elevator had got through the building and everyone was asking the landlord why they had not been informed it had been fixed and restored. If it was working, maybe there really was another Penny in the building. Unfortunately, the building superintendent denied the claims about so long before he too heard it himself and called a structural engineer from the city to come look at it and see if it had been covertly restored. Penny, Leonard, Sheldon, Jason from the fifth floor, Miss Gunderson from the third floor and Marshall Moseby and his girlfriend, Chloe Bluth, from the second floor then stood by and watched as the guy from the city opened the doors on the first floor to inspect the shaft from below, from the middle on the third floor and from the fifth floor. He also investigated the electronics and the generator system which were oddly clear of dust and full of old degraded oil, but he also found the ruins of the lift, the counterweights and strewn cables in the bottom of the shaft and the twisted and warped guide rails left over from the mysterious explosion that had claimed it several years ago. During the inspection, Leonard hemmed and swayed nervously, but then the report came out. The mechanism and electronics were okay, but the shaft was a lost cause. It would require stripping the shaft apart, replacing the guide rails, re-inforcing them and rebuilding the elevator from scratch within the building to repair it, and that wasn't going to happen. Elevators were built by the inside out, not from the outside in. A collapsed lift could be fixed; one alleged to have been used as a missile silo was a lost cause. When Jesse entered the building in front of all those people that morning, he paused to look at their faces, drew his breath back on his cigar and suspiciously made a sudden detour up to the fifth floor as everyone watched.

At the Cheesecake Factory, Penny tried to rationalize what she had seen. Did she hallucinate it? Did it really happen, and was Britney Spears were even there. Could it have been Britney Spears? She was supposedly supposed to be in Canada making a movie with Mark Ruffalo. Meanwhile, her missing shoes had returned under her bed as she predicted, but now she was missing a top, two pairs of shorts, a pair of sandals, a brand new pair of stockings and a pair of jeans. Were those little girls sneaking in, playing dress up, eating her food then sneaking back out of the place? She had just been shopping for groceries just the other day, and now she had to go again! Taking home leftovers from work was going to have to hold her another few days. As lunch rolled around again, the guys came by the Cheesecake Factory again. Sheldon was using his laptop computer to communicate.

"What's wrong with Sheldon?"

"Besides what psychiatrists are trying to figure out?" Howard commented. Sheldon scowled at him.

"Oh…" Leonard looked up grinning. "Oh, he kind of lost a bet, and now he can't talk for a week." He sighed happily. "It's been like heaven!"

Sheldon looked at him annoyed.

"Really?" Penny grinned ear to ear. "So he can't talk at all?"

"Nope!"

"One word?"

"Nada!" Howard shined happily.

"So wishes do come true!" Penny looked at Sheldon glaring back. He was miserable. They were so happy. Why were they so ecstatic not to hear his voice? Was there something really wrong with his personality?

"Just, wait, when this week is over…"

"Sheldon…"

"Drat!"

"Oh, hey…" Leonard remembered something. "How did your babysitting job go last night?"

"It wasn't as bad as I thought." Penny confessed. "Those little girls were so sweet! I mean - they were a little spooky…"

"A little creepy, a little ooky…" Howard added.

"Yeah," Penny continued. "Their apartment is a lot like my grandma's - if my grandmother lived in a haunted house! It's dark with a lot of antiques and bric-a-brac not to mention dusty and cobwebby, but did you know that Lizzie is a trained chef? She's authored several books on cooking and design based on her Wiccan ancestry."

Raj was whispering a question in Howard's ear.

"Wiccan?" Howard looked at him. "It means her ancestors were witches…"

"Oh Lord…" Sheldon rolled his eyes.

"Sheldon…" Penny reminded him of the bet.

"Drat…"

"Where did you get all this?" Leonard asked.

"I met Lizzie's father…" Penny confessed. "He was a famous magician in the Thirties and the Forties, and has been married thirteen times until death and beyond… Not sure what he meant by that."

Howard and Leonard shared a nervous look at each other.

"What does he look like?" Howard asked.

"Like a fat Jack The Ripper… but distinguished." Penny remarked. "Oh, and Dracula's Pie is a minty dark chocolate pudding pie with licorice and thick strawberry gelatin, and like she said, it is to die for. I'm going to see if the restaurant can include it."

"You tried it?" Leonard asked.

"Yes, I did." Penny went on. "And I didn't feel sick or nauseous afterward, even after the piranha and monitor lizard…. Although, I did have that dream I was fifty feet tall and wearing a cape…"


	12. Chapter 12

12

On Monday as asked, Howard was on Pacific Avenue in Alhambra that morning looking for William's lab. It was the business part of town; the area was full of banks, offices, hotels and fine restaurants on the ground floors of large office buildings. The corner across from where the bus dropped him off had a McDonalds, and a few buildings down a Subway Sandwich shop. Counting the numbers on the buildings, he appeared lost and discomfited. Where was this place? This address made no sense at all.

"Oh, come on!" He stood between a hotel and an expensive fine cuisine restaurant on the sidewalk with businessmen carrying suitcases, middle-aged socialites walking their dogs and talking on cell phones and young yuppies talking to invisible people through their ear devices. He was in a strange land with people he didn't know or trust. "Twelve-fourteen and three-quarters Pacific Avenue doesn't exist!" He suddenly had a strange revelation. "Oh my lord, I think I have a job at Hogwarts!"

"Howard…" William came from across the street carrying bags of food from McDonalds. "You made it!"

"William…" Howard chuckled abashedly. "I'm sorry, but I can't understand your address. It's…"

"It's down here…" William chuckled and guided him toward the old Subway stairs going down under the street next to the restaurant. He handed the food to Howard to hold and pulled out a ring of keys to unlock a gate which he rolled up and then the door behind it. "This is part of the former underground Los Angeles transit system closed down in the Fifties." Standing on the inner platform, he pulled the gate down behind them and reclosed the doors. Next to them, old tiled stairs leading down to an old station complex descended through darkness to the forgotten chamber before. Following William, Howard came down into an old forgotten room from another area. Left forgotten by the ages, the room looked like New York's Grand Central Station. There were side corridors to the subway tunnels underneath, old ticket windows, closed off shops and restaurants used as makeshift apartments and a network grid of glowing lights and motion detectors throughout the domed roof and an extended cage coming down over their work area. William's friends in this experiment were off to the side near their interconnected computers, laptops, VCRs, digital recorders, DVD players, large computer banks and TV screens and monitors. In the center of the room, a woman in a long white dress stood near an R2-unit and recited the same phrase over and over.

"Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you are my only hope…" She jumped and phased out. "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you are my only hope…" It faded out again to loop once more. "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you are my only hope…" It was the signature scene from the 1976 movie "Star Wars" rendered in three-dimensional holographic illusions at life-size. Howard's jaw dropped to watch as William and his team's computers scanned the face and body of actress Carrie Fisher from the period to render her holographic counterpart. It also scanned and rendered the droid R2-D2 from photos and sections of the film. Howard felt he was looking at the real thing as he walked around it. William's team was still fine-tuning and adjusting the image as Leia faded, lost contrast, grew taller or fatter and then increased in tendency to almost flesh and blood.

"Oh - my - god…" He was completely shocked and stunned. He turned to William. "Three-dimensional imaging?"

"Remember the holodeck from Star Trek?" William and his friends grinned. "Watch this!" He gave his friends their breakfast and then turned off their Princess Leia simulation. Pulling up another program, several pictures of Marilyn Monroe appeared on the monitors followed by a three-dimensional version of the woman herself in the room wearing a three-piece white ladies business suit.

"Hello, Howard, welcome to the Pit." She spoke and recognized him. "Please respond for vocal pattern identification."

"Oh my god!" Howard's mind and heart was racing. "Interactive?! This is incredible! Do you guys realize what you have here?!" He paused zealously. "Hello, Marilyn, nice to finally meet you."

The computers processed his voice, pitch and vocal pattern into a code she could recognize.

"Voice identification received." Marilyn blinked softly and grinned very lifelike to Howard. "Hello, Howard, nice to meet you too. May I introduce my father, William Nathaniel Samms, the creator of this project…"

William turned toward his break table to eat his breakfast. He grinned to Marilyn and then to Howard.

"Schuster Leopold Collins, my head programmer…" Marilyn gestured to the tall thin guy eating the Egg McMuffin and drinking orange juice. Nicknamed "Schoost," Collins reached across to shake Howard's hand.

"…and Ratri Narayana Ramapan, my designer." She moved over to an attractive Hindu beauty with a round face and big brown eyes with short dark hair. The gifted tomboy saluted Howard with her breakfast hamburger burrito. "I bid you welcome to our team."

Howard was grinning so hard that he couldn't stop.

"She was developed over only one year's worth of work." William mentioned as he pushed his glasses up. "Scanning images, creating personality matrixes, inventing revolutionary new-style projectors and completely redeveloping existing three-dimensional software."

"We're trying to complete a program that can complete and cover almost one thousand, one hundred and eighty-three commands so we can completely generate the movie and all its characters, locations and situations." Speaking with a mild British accent, Schoost rose and adjusted something on his computer. "Once we can do that, we should be able to completely simulate any movie or television series…"

"And create our own…" Ratri elegantly spoke with a soft accent of her own. "Sort of a complete holographic motion picture industry in a computer." Howard looked to Marilyn looking back at him and then back toward William, Schoost and Ratri. Their three faces together reminded him of someone else he thought he knew, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it just yet. In the back of his mind, he wondered if they could conjure Angelina Jolie or Katee Sackhoff.

"I'm home!" He cheered excitedly.

Back on North Los Robles, Leonard, Sheldon and Raj were on their own time without Howard after working at the university. It had been a month since the Vannacutts had moved in, and the incident was now replaying itself with a long gray Rolls Royce limousine with a black top parked out front of the building in place of the van. Jesse's brother-in-law, Harold, was happily polishing and waxing the hood to keep it looking nice, chuckling and singing under his breath as he did it. Little Nikki and Samantha were standing in the open sunroof, but as Leonard and Sheldon got closer, they jumped down into it and hid down inside of it.

"Jesse…" Grandpa came strolling down the stairs of the building carrying a long wooden object sideways, got stopped by the width of the door then reposed and came out to the limo. "Don't worry about the stuff. We'll come back after dark and get everything." He had a white face, small eyes and dark hair tinged with brows of white and silver and wore a long black and red-lined funeral cape that made him look like a Late-Sixties sitcom version of Count Dracula. He leaned close to Jesse in hushed secret tones. "Let them try and hear the elevator then…"

Jesse approved with a secret gracious hand gesture.

"Preferably after midnight…" Bald-headed Chester with the long dark attire and crazy dark eyes spoke with his low strained sepulchral voice and chuckled silently before turning to his nephew Freddie in the full beard and wild hair.

"And under the full moon…" He faked a wolf call and shared a secret passion with all things dark and scary with his favorite uncle. Extremely fond and close with his family and relatives, Jesse grinned ear-to-ear while posturing with his cigar a little bit and handed his personal briefcase to Harold to put in the trunk. Looking over Harold's flat head, he noticed Leonard, Sheldon and Raj standing outside the building.

"Jesse, what's going on…"

"The house is out of probate, my boy!" The proud eccentric and former lawyer poked Cuban cigars into Leonard's mouth, Sheldon's mouth and Raj's. "We're moving in!" Not to be insulting, Leonard took his out and put it in his shirt pocket, but Sheldon made a face and gave his to Raj who eagerly accepted a light from Jesse's silver lighter and smoked his. Suddenly coughing, Jesse was there to pat Raj on the back to help him.

"You're moving on?" Leonard was kind of going to miss him as a character.

"Most certainly…" Jesse sighed and rolled his eyes thinking of the Gothic three-story with its twenty-four bedrooms, ballroom, grand dining room, basement catacombs, greenhouse and large grounds. "Leonard, you've got to come on out sometime and see the place up close." He placed his arm around Leonard and gestured to describe his new home. "The cobwebs, the dust, the shadows, the moonlight coming over the roof and the soft mist of the marsh and creek coming over the small cemetery there…" He paused as the image choked him up. "It's just so beautiful…"

"Oh, good lord…" Sheldon rolled his eyes. "Just go already…"

"Sheldon…" Leonard reminded him of the bet.

"Drat…."

"Did I just feel a raindrop?" Jesse held a hand out.

"I didn't feel…" Sheldon put his hand out to feel for rain, and Jesse tapped the ashes of his cigar into it. Looking at the ashes disgustedly, he looked at Leonard wanting to talk but didn't. Raj was grinning close to laughing.

"I love the way he keeps putting you in your face." Raj enjoyed his cigar, coughed a bit then continued smiling. In the building, Penny was in her waitress uniform and heading to work with Lizzie coming down by her side. Dressed in a long black dress showing her curves and her cleavage, the exotic authoress and culinary mistress was sharing a few of her recipes with the young actress.

"These two are for you, this one is for your restaurant…" The two had bonded on a small level. "And this is the address and directions for the house. You can come by anytime. We can always dig up a place for you to sleep."

"Thank you…" Penny grinned and hugged her back. "I think." She watched as Lizzie walked a very slinky walk out the front of the building to the family limo parked at the curb and peeked inside. Her daughters were uncharacteristically sitting still in the back seats with very guilty looks.

"What sort of mischief are you two getting into?" She looked to the floorboard and saw her husband's overcoat draped over an object hidden from view. Nikki and Samantha rolled their eyes innocently.

"What have I told you? Not until tonight!" She pulled out a three-foot long Chinese firework as thick as her arm emblazoned with the name, "Destroyer" in neon letters.

"Those little devils…" Jesse grinned at them and then toward his wife. They shared a secret grin between them, and he took her hand daintily as she stepped into the back of the limo, but he held on to it a second more to stroke it his fingers then lift it to his lips to kiss it and treat her like a queen.

"Pas mantenant, mon amour…" Her voice echoed back as she coquettishly took her hand back.

"Lizzie…" Jesse eyed his sexy wife with a wild look in his eyes, and a smile poking out from under his mustache. "You know how French drives my German blood wild." He took her gently by his hand, drew her white hand close to him as she surrendered to him once more and regally kissed her hand then her ruby red lips.

"Leonard, I'm sorry, but I cannot stand here and stand silently by watching this." Sheldon broke the bounds of the bet he had lost by launching into another tirade. "But these people are not normal. We have to call someone. The police, the FBI, Homeland Security… these people should not be allowed to run around loose to propagate more of their kind. We need to find out what mental hospital they escaped from before they completely vanish into society."

Jesse and Lizzie looked up barely offended, but her brother-in-law, Harold, turned around looking at Sheldon. Grandpa and Freddie stopped and stared at him. Chester paused and lowered his baldhead in offense and looked more like a ghoul that should have been haunting the local cemetery. Embarrassed and humiliated, Leonard and Penny reacted in unison as they placed their fingers to the brows of their faces as if they both suddenly had splitting headaches. Still smoking his free cigar, Raj turned around and tried to hide in the building lobby.

"Sheldon…" Leonard and Penny chorused together in exasperated humiliation as Sheldon once again embarrassed them by being the most undiplomatic person on the planet.

"Oh, please…" Sheldon spoke his mind. "There was no way I was going to be stand by silent for an entire week!" He looked back to Jesse and Lizzie. "Look, I have an I.Q. of 187…"

"Interesting…." Lizzie grinned knowingly and looked to her husband. "Jesse has an I.Q. of 189."

Finally drawing silent once more, Sheldon rolled his eyes and postured humiliated.

"Lizzie, you embarrass me so…" Jesse took his wife's hand and kissed it graciously. She beamed back to him bursting with their smoldering love and passionate link with each other. "Leonard…" Jesse turned to Leonard to thank him for his kindness and diplomacy. "I'm so going to miss your friendship. My sister especially… she loved living inside the city."

"Oh… I never did meet your sister." Leonard replied.

"Actually, old friend…" Jesse played with his cigar. "You and Penny actually helped her find a make-over that she really liked."

"What do you mean by that?" Penny asked.

"_Poker Face… Can't read my… Can't read my…" _They heard her voice coming down the stairs inside the building and coming out carrying her suitcase and make-up case. "_Poker face…"_ Dancing and strutting her way down and looking as if she was Penny's hotter more promiscuous twin sister, she was blonde, shapely, statuesque and endowed with long blonde hair down her back. Dressed in a violet top and black miniskirt, she grinned toward Leonard, grinded her hip toward Raj standing silently once more to tease him then hugged Penny standing in shock. Grinning blissfully happy toward Penny, Marilyn turned again slowly to Leonard.

"Call me?" She gasped erotically in his ear to flirt with him with her hand shaped like a phone held up to her ear. Trying to sneak away with clothes stolen from Penny's closet, she turned away with a wiggle to her walk and slipped into the limo. Penny dropped her jaw in offended shock and slightly moved forward to beat up the twin sister she never wanted, but Leonard held her back. Stunned into disbelief, Sheldon watched distantly concerned with his arms crossed before him as Marilyn gave Harold her suitcase to put on the roof of the limo with the luggage then slipped into the back past Lizzie. Following Marilyn out to the limo, Raj peeked to the car and looked to Marilyn grinning and flirtingly dancing her fingers toward him to wave goodbye.

"I think I liked her more as Katy Perry." Lizzie commented.

"Yes, but Britney made her a little crazy." Jesse answered with a light chuckle, puffed on his cigar a bit and slipped into the limo behind his wife and sister. Having secured Marilyn's suitcase, Harold closed the door to the back and opened the car to get in behind the wheel.

"Leonard…" Jesse popped up again through the window in the roof and reached to shake Leonard's hand. "If you need anything, want anything, don't hesitate to call… I will be there!" He knocked at the roof. "Home, Harold!"

His brother-in-law with the square head mugged a bit and started the engine.

"Leonard, you must come visit!" He called to him as the limo pulled away. "You just have to meet the entire family!" He gestured good-bye with his cigar as their family limo pulled further and further away. Leonard looked at Penny and back down the street.

"Oh, lord…" Sheldon commiserated.

"How big a family could they have?" Penny asked.

"The next tenants couldn't possibly be any worse." Leonard watched as a taxicab pulled to the curb, it's brakes squealing as it came to a stop. A jolly fat guy in a black captain's hat wearing a Navy windbreaker and a blue shirt came out behind the driver. Coming out on the other side of the back seat was a skinny young kid in a red shirt and sailor hat struggling to close the door. He closed it, opened it and closed it again.

"Come on, little buddy…" The big guy called his colleague along and looked at the listing for the building from the realtor. "This is the place. Let's see what they're asking for rent!"

"After all those years on the island, it will be great to sleep in a regular bed again." The skinny kid answered back. Sheldon, Leonard and Raj watched the two enter and go looking for the building superintendent. Raj checked for rain while puffing his cigar, and Penny noticed a beautiful redhead in a silver lamiae dress pass by her on her way to her car to get to work.

"Oh lord…" Sheldon groaned.

END


End file.
